Cookies and Candids

I’m finally catching up on my posts about the rest of last week’s many birthday baking and dessert-eating activities! This was one of my favorites, a cake baked specially for my birthday by my mom. It was three light layers of cake – the bottom and top layers were hazelnut and the middle was a vanilla sponge cake. The hazelnut cake was made with an adapted version of my almond cupcake recipe (simply subsituting ground hazelnuts for the almond meal), and the vanilla sponge cake was from Hannah Kaminsky’s lovely cookbook, My Sweet Vegan. In between the layers was a vegan nutella frosting with chopped strawberries, and on the top and sides was slathered a silky smooth vegan chocolate cream cheese icing with more sliced strawberries for decoration. It was truly delicious and a perfect birthday treat!

Check out the red color that the crushed hazelnuts took on during baking!