Nutella Cake

Hi guys,

It was my boyfriend's birthday on Saturday and as well as making chili con carne, I also made him a Nutella cake. I used a Nigella recipe which I'll link here. It turned out really nice and yummy and it wasn't too hard to make either. It was very rich and although the recipe says it serves 8, I think it could probably serve 12 since you only really need a small slice otherwise it's too sickly.

Ingredients:

For the cake

6 large eggs

a pinch of salt

125g unsalted butter

400g Nutella 

1 tablespoon water

100g ground hazelnuts

100g melted dark chocolate

For the icing

100g whole, peeled hazelnuts

125ml double cream

1 tablespoon water

125g chopped dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4 and separate the egg whites and egg yolks. In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry. In a different bowl, beat the butter and Nutella together, then add the water, egg yolks and ground hazelnuts.

Melt the chocolate and then fold in once it has cooled down a bit, then lighten the mixture with a dollop of egg white and beat it in. Then gently fold in the rest a third at a time.

Pour the mixture into a 23cm/9inch round, greased and lined tin and cook for 40 minutes or until the cake's beginning to come away at the sides, then let it cool on a rack. Leave it on the base, because it's quite damp inside and will fall apart if you try and remove the base.

Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until they turn golden brown, keep shaking the pan so they don't burn on one side. Put them on a plate and let them cool down completely.

In a saucepan, add the cream, water and chopped chocolate and heat gently. Once the chocolate is melted, remove the pan from the heat and whisk until it's the right consistency to ice the cake. 

Ice the top with the icing (we had more so we also did the sides) then line it with the toasted hazelnuts. We also added some Malteasers, as if there wasn't enough chocolate!

Unfortunately while we were on the way to my boyfriend's place, the icing sort of slid off a bit, hence why it looks so messy and homemade.