Chocolate-Glazed Hazelnut Mousse Cake.

It's not Nigella. I'm fairly certain that the next Nigella cake I need to make is called something like Rococoa and involves pistachios and lots of layers and I'm just not excited. So sue me.

But we succumbed to an invitation to resubscribe to Gourmet for $1 an issue. We stopped getting Gourmet years ago, when it became too much lifestyle and not enough food. Recently, though, M has become even more of a foodie, and now she likes to read food magazines and the food section of the NY Times. She opened the envelope with the offer and asked if we could do it. Given how much money I spend a month on decaf lattes, the least we can do is subscribe to Gourmet. Who knows, perhaps the investment will pay off when she's a famous restauranteur supporting us in our old age.

We got our first issue a week or so ago, and there on the cover was a stunning Chocolate-Glazed Hazelnut Mousse Cake. The gauntlet was thrown. When S's brother (that is, his fiance) invited us to dinner, the date was set.

The recipe included hazelnuts, Nutella, Dutch process cocoa, and gelatin, so it involved a fair amount of shopping (did you say Nutella? did you say Nutella on bread? did you say crepes with Nutella? did you say the Nutella is already almost gone? why yes, you did).

A lot of cake recipes call for an 8" springform pan. I don't know why they do this. My springform pans, which are old and battered and extremely average, are 9" springform pans. When I am at the supermarket or Target and think, oh, I should look for an 8" springform pan, all I find are 9" springform pans. This may be one of those chef/restaurant/cookbook things that ordinary mortals do not adhere to. S says we should order a set of good springform pans, including an 8". This is a good idea, but on Saturday all I had was my old, battered 9".

The crust recipe looked skimpy to begin with, and, remember, the pan was 9" not 8". First I halfed it again, then I ended up making another half, because 1 1/2 did not fully cover the bottom of the 9" springform pan. But it was very easy: toast the hazelnuts, grind in the food processor with sugar, add flour, cocoa, butter, and salt, spread in the bottom of the (9") springform pan, bake.

The mousse was pretty easy too: do the gelatin thing, add the Nutella, beat with mascarpone, beat cream and sugar and cocoa, fold it all up, pour into (9") pan with crust already baked and cooled in bottom, refrigerate. A few hours later I made the easiest ganache ever (heat cream, add chocolate, whisk), poured it over, and it was done. I left out the part where I broke the crust, as usual, because I am impatient and sloppy, but I didn't break it so badly, I put it back together, and it was unnoticeable once the mousse was on the crust and the ganache was on the mousse.

If I did it again, I would one and a half the mousse as well, given the 9" pan and all, but though it was a little thin (maybe 2" high), taste-wise there was a good ratio of crust to mousse to ganache. We left it out before we served it, so the mousse was a bit soft, but it was quite delicious: the crunch of the crust and the softness of the mousse and the chewiness of the ganache made a good texture combination, and the varieties of chocolate and hazelnut in each were very tasty.

At the time I didn't think I'd necessarily make it again, but in retrospect, I'm thinking it was pretty easy and pretty delicious so maybe I will.