Back when I went to Berlin last December, one tasty little morsel we bought as a souvenir were these German hazelnut praline candies called “Toffiffee”. They were fun to stay out loud, a nightmare to type out, and were these caramel-nougat candies that contain chocolate and hazelnut. So in other words, delicious. However, we bought way too much of it – just one souvenir box contained about 32 pieces of Toffiffee. So we wound up stashing it in my handy-dandy freezer until we could figure out what to do with them. This cake is what we did with them. Hilariously, this was a cake that we brought to the L.A. Cake Picnic back in June, where all attendees needed to bring a cake to partake. The rules were bring a cake, and you get to take a slice out of every cake there. There were over 300 attendees, so that was a lot of cake. And a lot of people. In the pandemonium, I could not get a picture of the cake’s cross section, but I was happy to see that the cake was basically devoured, meaning that us saving the Toffiffee worked out nicely. When it came to the other flavors, brown butter was a no-brainer, since hazelnuts and brown butter are a match made in heaven. With a third flavor, we had a jar of Biscoff lying around, and that does pair nicely with the other flavors, being a gingerbread cookie-like spread, so there is a subtle background of spice and sweetness to layer in with the nuttiness of the hazelnut and the brown butter to form this luxurious, soft, rich cake. Also, thank you and I’m sorry to any L.A. Cake Picnic attendees who feel duped if you heard that one of my cakes contained a bunch of leftover ingredients. For what it’s worth, the Biscoff jar, while it had been sitting in my pantry for months, was never opened until we made the buttercream for this cake. And the Toffiffee was imported from Germany by way of my luggage, so at least there’s that?

For the components, we have a brown butter cake with a vanilla soak, a Biscoff buttercream, and Toffiffee bits throughout the cake, topped with hazelnuts. Truthfully, this cake is pretty easy to make, so long as you know how to make brown butter. If you have never made brown butter before, you start by taking butter, heating it up in a pan until it melts, then continue heating it past it melting until it stops bubbling and frothing, and turns into an amber-colored oil-like substance that smells like those cellophane-wrapped yellow butterscotch candies. It makes for the most delicious baked goods, and brown butter cake is definitely no exception to that rule. The buttercream itself is exceptionally easy, being made by whipping room temperature butter with Biscoff. We are embracing the ingredients for what they are here, using the Biscoff to flavor and sweeten the whipped butter into a velvety smooth buttercream, and layering the whole cake with pieces of Toffiffee to add in specks of hazelnut, caramel, chocolate, and nougat to bring in some textural contrast to the tender-crumbed brown butter cake. Overall, it was a delicious cake, very easy to make(I give this recipe a 3/10 in terms of difficulty), and if you need to make a cake in a pinch, this is definitely a great one to whip up in about hours!

For the brown butter cake:
2 sticks unsalted butter, browned and cooled
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsps baking soda
4oz Toffifee, cut into quarters

In a bowl, whisk together the brown butter, buttermilk, sugar, vanilla, and salt until combined. In another bowl, sift into that the flour and baking soda. Fold the flour through the brown butter-buttermilk to form your cake batter. Pour the batter into a parchment-lined quarter sheet tray, spreading to batter into an even layer. Sprinkle the Toffiffee throughout the batter. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22 minutes, then allow the cake to fully cool before cutting out 3 6-inch rounds, using the scraps as necessary to form any layers. Freeze the rounds solid.

For the vanilla soak:
1/2 cup milk
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, mix everything together. Keep the soak refrigerated until time to assemble.

For the Biscoff buttercream:
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
14oz Biscoff spread
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

In a bowl, whip everything together until a smooth, creamy, spreadable buttercream is formed.

For assembly:
8 Toffiffee candies, cut into quarters
Toasted hazelnuts

Place down a round of cake and sprinkle on 1/3 of the soak. Spread roughly 2oz of the buttercream onto the round in a smooth, even layer, then sprinkle onto that half of the Toffiffee pieces. Repeat these steps with the next layer of cake. For the final layer, apply on the soak first, then spread 1oz of the buttercream on top of the cake. Transfer the cake to the freezer for 10 minutes to allow the buttercream to firm up. Then spread the remaining buttercream around the cake, using an offset spatula or a bench scraper to flatten the buttercream/cover any exposed pieces of cake. Optionally, you can swipe along the buttercream with an offset spatula to give a more wavy finish to the buttercream itself. Garnish the top with hazelnut pieces to finish.