Nutella Hazelnut Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 3 cups Flour (All-purpose or cake flour)
- 1/2 cup cocoa
- 2 cups water (hot)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp hazelnut extract (or 1 Tbsp hazelnut liqueur)
- 2 tbsp white vinegar
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil (canola, corn, avocado, etc.)
- 0.5 tsp instant espresso powder (or instant coffee)
Frosting
- 1 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
- 1/4 cup Nutella (plus a few extra tablespoons for optional garnish)
- 5 cups icing sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 5 tbsp heavy cream
- 1/4 cup cocoa
- 2-5 tbsps hot water
- 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped (optional for garnish)
Instructions
Cake
- Sift together the flour and baking soda, and stir in the salt and sugar. Mix the 1/2 cup cocoa powder and espresso powder into the 2 cups hot water. Form a well into the dry ingredients and add the cocoa-water mixture, the vanilla, hazelnut extract, and vegetable oil. Stir together just until the batter has formed, do not overmix. Pour into two prepared, round, 9" cake pans. Bake at 375ºF/190ºC for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, then remove from pans and allow to cool completely before frosting.
Frosting
- Beat together butter and Nutella until fluffy and light. Add one cup of icing sugar and cocoa, beating at high speed until icing starts to form up. Add the salt, cream and the rest of the icing sugar and mix at low speed until mostly mixed. Add hot water 1 tablespoon at a time, beating at medium to high speed until desired consistency is reached. Frost cooled cakes, adding swirls of Nutella from a piping bag and toasted hazelnuts as garnish.
And now for the details…
Howdy folks! Sorry for the delay; I have been away for the last little while. (From the blog, not from home… where am I supposed to go during a pandemic? ha!) The main reason is because I am making some changes to the blog on the technical side of things and that has been eating up (pun intended) a lot of my time. You might notice some changes coming through in the next little while, starting with this blog post! (check out that fancy new recipe set-up at the top… pretty fresh, right? Ooooooh! Aaaaaaah!)
Enough about that, let’s talk cake! I made this for a friend’s birthday, but let’s be honest, when is NOT a good time for Nutella cake? No time. No time is not a good time for Nutella cake. I.e. All times are a good time for Nutella cake. I am making as assumption here that you, dear reader, are familiar with Nutella. If you’re not… oh boy. Prepare to have your mind BLOWN. Nutella is a sweet chocolate hazelnut spread. It originates from Italy from the Ferrero company (fun fact: did you know that Ferrero also created and owns the Kinder chocolate brand as well?) and it’s origin dates back to 1946. Whether you’re smearing it on toast, drizzling it over crêpes, dipping strawberries into it, or, in this case, incorporating it in a cake, it is a delicious sweet treat worth enjoying.
Something to be aware of on this recipe: it is SWEEEEEEEEEET. Seriously. I actually think I could feel cavities forming on my first bite. The cake itself seems even sweeter than a normal chocolate cake thanks to the addition of the hazelnut extract. The frosting is an American-style buttercream, so it definitely has that thick, sugary texture. This is the frosting style I grew up with, not getting introduced to Swiss Meringue or Italian buttercream until later in life. And the American-style buttercream, with its thin, crystalline crust of sugar that forms on the outside, combined with the fluffy, rich sweetness of the rest of the frosting is what I crave when I am wanting a rich, toothy cake. And since Nutella forms the base of the frosting, it is rich sweet, and totally sweet-tooth satisfying.
Let’s get to baking.
We are going to start with the cake. For our cake today, we are going real simple. I am using an offshoot of a recipe my grandma used for chocolate cake. The cake itself it nice and simple.
We sift together the flour and baking soda, then whisk in the sugar and salt. Next, mix together some hot water (hot out of the tap is just fine) with the cocoa and espresso powder until the powders are mostly dissolved. If you are worried about the cake having a mocha flavour and aren’t a fan of coffee, fret not. That small amount of coffee powder will barely be detectable. The reason for adding it is the depth of flavour that this tiny bit of coffee adds by emphasizing the chocolate in the cake. Long story short: what to do if you want your chocolate cake to taste more chocolatey? Add a tiny bit of instant espresso powder (or instant coffee if you can’t find espresso).
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients (use a spoon, or get your hands right in there), and add the coffee/cocoa liquid mixture, the oil, and the vanilla and hazelnut extracts. The hazelnut extract might be a bit hard to find. If you can’t find it, you can use a hazelnut liqueur (like Frangelico) instead, but since the liqueurs aren’t flavoured as strongly as the extract, you’ll like need to use more, about 1-2 tablespoons. Mix all these ingredients together just enough to fully mix, then pour the batter into two prepared, round, 9-inch cake tins. Not sure what a prepare cake tin looks like? The good news is I went to it in detail in my Lemon Bumbleberry Cake recipe, check it out to get details on how to prepare your tins for cakes 😉
Bake those cakes up for 20-25 minutes in a 375ºF/190ºC, or until a toothpick comes out clean when being inserted in the centre of the cake. Take the cakes out of the oven and let them cool for 5-10 minutes, then run a knife around the edges, and turn the cake out of the tins onto a cooling rack and allow the cakes to fully cool. (Don’t forget to peel the waxed or parchment paper off if you’re using my suggestion for how to prepare the pan!)
Once fully cooled, we move to the final step and get ready to frost the cake. Start by beating the room-temperature butter with the Nutella at a high speed until smooth and fluffy. Starting on low speed, mix in 1 cup of the icing sugar and cocoa into the Nutella/butter, then whip on high speed until fully mixed. Bring the speed back down to low and add the salt and cream, then mix the rest of the icing sugar, one cup at a time. Once there isn’t a bunch of loose powder and everything has mixed in, add the hot water 1 Tbsp at a time, allowing it to mix in completely, until you have the frosting just a LITTLE looser than your desired consistency. Blitz it one more time for a minute or two on high speed to push air into icing, getting it nice and fluffy. It will also stiffen a little in this last bit of beating, which is why we went with the frosting being a little looser than desired before it. If you go too far and it’s way too loose, add a bit more icing sugar. Too stiff? Add a tiny bit more water. If you go back and forth a bit with the icing sugar and water additions, yep, that’s pretty typical for the first few times making frosting! I had occasions when I was starting out that I almost doubled the amount of frosting that I meant to make! *whoops* (but… was it really a problem to have too much frosting? ;P)
Frost the cake, including a generous amount of icing between the two layers. If you are a great cake decorator and want to go down the path of cutting the cake to be perfectly flat, or even cut it into multiple layers, feel free! I love cake… but I am not the greatest cake decorator *eep* I am open to suggestions or ideas though! I finished mine off with some crushed roasted hazelnuts and a drizzling of straight Nutella. In order to get it to a drizzle-worth consistency, I heated it up for a short amount of time (about 10 seconds) in the microwave and then transferred it to a piping bag with a fine tip to drizzle it over the cake.
Finally, cut and enjoy!
Happy eating.