Sponge Cake - ingredient substitution query.

[MMRuth]

I'm back to playing around with my Thanksgiving Buche de Noel idea. In the past, I've used Child's recipe for an orange almond sponge cake. This year, I want to make it with hazelnuts instead. The recipe calls for the zest of one orange and 1/4 to 1/3 cup of strained orange juice. I'll use hazelnut extract instead of almond extract, but I'm not sure about the liquid substitution for the orange juice. Could I just use water? Any other ideas? Or flavors that go well with hazelnut?

My plan is to make an imbibing syrup with Fra Angelico, and a butter cream frosting with Fra Angelico for the filling, and an Italian meringue chocolate frosting for the outside. If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I might make hazelnut brittle to crush up and sprinkle on the filling before I roll it up.

Thanks.

[CoconutMilk]

i'm no baking expert, but what's wrong with not substituting at all. Orange and hazelnut is a good combo IMO.

[Claudette]

MMRuth, I've seen lots of sponge cake recipes with water, so that shouldn't be a problem. But don't you like orange with hazelnut? I know that hazelnut and chocolate is a favorite combo at my house. Your plan sounds divine! Yum!

[MMRuth]

Thanks all - maybe I'll go ahead and make my test batch with the orange and see what I think. I do like the idea of pear juice.

[Sooeygun]

I agree that orange would go well, but you could sub water. A quick google of hazelnut recipes showed my hazelnut also matched with pear, apple and passionfruit. I bet pear juice would work.

[KiwiTree54]

That sounds amazing, love sponge cake! You should post a picture and tell us how it turned it!

[MMRuth]

Thanks - I will - here are the "decorations" I spent a day fiddling with a couple of weeks ago:

[Claudette]

Very pretty!

[paulj]

My guess is that this amount of orange juice does not make a big difference in flavor. The zest often is more important, especially when it comes to aroma. Liqueurs are also intense flavor sources.

[MMRuth]

Update - last night I made the cake. I used hazelnuts instead of almonds, and added about 1/3 of cup of fresh orange juice as I had it in the fridge. No zest. It had a bit more orangey flavor than I would ideally like, but I cut of a two inch strip for testing my filling and frosting, and rolled up the rest of and will freeze it today.

This morning I made the imbibing syrup with Fra Angelico, and the French Buttercream, using Fra Angelico as the flavouring. I cut up my strip of cake into four pieces, sprinkled on the imbibing syrup, and then spread on the filling and cut off a piece to taste, So far so good, so the buttercream will go into the freezer and the syrup into the fridge.

Next I'll make a chocolate ganache from The Cake Bible (bittersweet chocolate), add it on, and if I like it, I'll go ahead and freeze the ganache as well. I have NO idea why I've never made the components ahead of time in the past. When you try to do it all in one day, one's kitchen (or at least mine) is a total disaster!