Chocolate Vanilla Bars with Hazelnut Caramel Crunch

Melt the sugar over medium heat in a tall saucepan and let it caramelize until golden brown.

Then carefully add the butter, cream and salt. The caramel will seize up at first, so keep stirring until it turns creamy again.

Set the finished caramel aside and let it cool.

For the crunch and the decoration, toast 3 ½ oz (100 g) whole hazelnuts in a dry skillet or in the oven at 200°F (100°C) convection (fan), then chop them coarsely.

If you love things extra caramelly, you can caramelize the hazelnuts in a little sugar before chopping them.

Mix all the ingredients into a smooth dough, cover it and chill it in the fridge for at least half an hour.

In the meantime, make the chocolate sponge: first weigh out all the dry ingredients and mix them together.

Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites with the salt and half of the sugar, and beat the egg yolks with the other half of the sugar until light and fluffy.

Gently combine the two mixtures, then fold in the grated chocolate and all the sifted dry ingredients.

Finally, add the melted butter and spread the chocolate batter evenly on a baking sheet, ideally inside the 11 × 10 ½-inch (28 × 27 cm) baking frame. Bake in the preheated oven at 350°F (170°C) conventional (top and bottom heat) for about 15 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean).

While it bakes, take the shortcrust pastry out of the fridge and roll it out thinly to the size of your baking frame.

Prick the pastry all over with a fork and set it aside until the chocolate sponge is done.

Now raise the oven temperature to 400°F (200°C) and bake the shortcrust for about 10 minutes, until golden brown.

Spread the salted caramel over the shortcrust right away while it is still warm, because that makes it very easy to spread.

While the layers cool, you can already make the buttercream.

Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and boil the syrup to 244°F (118°C). A candy thermometer is a big help here.

Shortly before the syrup reaches that temperature, start beating the egg whites with the salt until stiff.

Now pour the very hot sugar syrup carefully and slowly into the beaten egg whites while mixing, and add the seeds scraped from the vanilla bean.

The meringue will get very warm and needs to be beaten until it is back at room temperature (this can take up to 20 minutes).

Meanwhile, beat the butter until it is as light and fluffy as possible (at least 5 minutes).

Now combine the two mixtures, both at the same temperature, into the finished buttercream.

Now it is time to put everything together.

First cut the completely cooled chocolate sponge in half.

Place the shortcrust with the caramel on a surface you can cut on, set the baking frame around it and lay the first chocolate sponge layer on top.

Soak the sponge with a liquid of your choice (for example simple syrup, made by bringing equal parts water and sugar to a boil, or chocolate syrup thinned with milk).

Then spread most of the buttercream over the sponge; keep back only as much as you want for decorating at the end.

Scatter the chopped hazelnuts over the cream and place the second sponge layer on top, then soak it as well.

Chill the cake briefly while you prepare the last step.

Bring the cream to a boil and pour it over the chopped chocolate.

Once everything has melted, stir in the hazelnut nougat and, for shine, a little solid coconut fat.

If you are not a nougat fan, simply replace it with a smaller amount of chocolate to make a regular ganache.

Spread the glaze evenly over the chilled cake, then refrigerate it for a few hours or, best of all, overnight.

Cut the well chilled cake into small bars and decorate them however you like with the remaining buttercream and a few chopped hazelnuts.