Walnut orange cake with candied walnuts

With my recipe I will guide you step by step to bake this delicious buttercream cake stretched with vanilla pudding. It is refined with David's Winter Magic, organic walnut puree from 27grad Rohkostöle, orange zest and candied walnuts.

Of course, you can also prepare a pure buttercream, which becomes firmer and is nicer to work with. However, I prefer a stretched buttercream, because it tastes much lighter (and of course has significantly fewer calories) and you can eat two or three pieces of it.

The cooling times are also included in the preparation time. I usually use these for other preparation steps. When the light cake base is in the oven, I cook the pudding. While both are cooling, I chop the walnuts and candy them. In this way, the entire preparation time is reduced or waiting times, during which something has to cool down, are used reasonably.

Of course, you can also cool down the cake base and the pudding more quickly in the fridge or (when the outside temperature is low) on the balcony. Nevertheless, you should plan enough time. After all, baking should be fun!

Preparation time

6 - 7 hours (incl. cooling times)

Equals

12 portions

Ingredients for the cake base

for a cake base with a diameter of 26 cm

Preparation cake base

1. Grease and flour the baking pan. Preheat oven to 175° C top/bottom heat.
2. Whip egg whites with salt and cold water in a food processor.
3. Before the egg whites are completely stiff, gradually add the sugar and erythritol. Only then beat until completely stiff.
4. On medium speed, gradually stir in the egg yolks. Beat briefly on high speed.
5. Either sift the flour over the mixture and gently fold in with a whisk or, in a food processor on low speed, fold in the sifted flour by the tablespoonful. Work carefully so that the volume is not lost.
6. Pour the dough into the baking pan and smooth it out. Bake in the oven for 30 - 35 minutes, possibly turning down the temperature to 160° C after 20 minutes (depending on the baking pan and heating capacity of the oven).

While the cake is in the oven, you can cook the vanilla pudding for the filling cream.

Ingredients for the filling cream

Preparation filling cream

1. First, cook the pudding: do this in a medium saucepan, whisk together the whole eggs, flour, sugar, erythritol, vanilla and salt until smooth.
2. Heat over medium heat and gradually stir in the milk. Increase to higher heat and continue stirring constantly, until the liquid thickens. Be careful, this can happen very quickly! Then turn back to medium heat and simmer for about 2 to 3 minutes - keep stirring!
3. Transfer the pudding to another saucepan or bowl and cool in a water bath. Stir frequently at first to prevent a skin from forming. Later, occasional stirring is enough.
4. The pudding must cool to at least room temperature. Take the butter out of the fridge in time to warm up and soften. Both should have the same temperature for further processing.
   Tip: During the cooling time you can candie your walnuts.
5. Mix the butter well with a hand mixer and gradually stir in the pudding briskly. Add the Winter Magic, walnut puree and orange zest and stir the cream until smooth. You can vary the aromatics in type and quantity according to your personal taste.

Ingredients for the candied walnuts

shopping list

Candying walnuts

1. Chop walnuts into pieces as small as possible and toast them in a pan. (If chopped, you get too many very small pieces).
2. Remove from pan and set aside.
3. In the pan, mix the remaining ingredients. Heat the mixture and let it simmer briefly so that the sugar caramelizes.
4. Return the walnut pieces into the pan and stir well so that they are all evenly coated with the spiced sugar.
5. Once the water has evaporated, transfer to a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread out to cool. If the nuts stay in the pan too long, the sugar may partially separate from the nuts again. Then you can add some water again and reheat.

Recipe tip: You can also candy other nuts:

Candied Almonds

Filling the cake

After all the preparatory work now comes the most beautiful part: assemble the cake!

1. Put a few tablespoons of the filling cream in a piping bag and put it in the refrigerator.
2. Cut the cake layer twice so that you have 3 slices of as equal height as possible.
3. Place the bottom layer on a cake plate and cover the edge with parchment paper. Spread filling cream evenly over the bottom.
4. Place the middle layer on top, press it down lightly and spread it with cream as well.
5. Then place the cake lid on top. Press it on as well and spread the top and outside of the cake evenly with the remaining cream.
6. If the cream is too warm, you can chill the cake in the refrigerator. Then the cake is easier to smooth.
7. Now you can use different piping nozzles to decorate the cake as you like and add dried, halved orange slices and the candied walnuts!