NIGELLA’S NUTELLA CAKE

When I asked my friend Jordan what kind of cake he’d like for his birthday, he replied…“Is it possible to make a Nutella cake? Does such a thing exist? I bloody hope so”. I knew there I was one place to look….Nigella Lawson. And I was right!

Here’s how I did it…

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE CAKE:
6 large eggs, separated
Pinch of salt
125g soft unsalted butter
400g Nutella (1 large jar)
1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum or water
100g ground hazelnuts
100g dark chocolate, melted
23cm Springform tin, greased and lined

FOR THE ICING:
100g hazelnuts (peeled weight)
125ml double cream
1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum or water
125g dark chocolate
1tbsp Golden Syrup

First, preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4. I always like to start a recipe by looking out all my ingredients first…

In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry.

In a separate bowl, beat the butter and Nutella together.

Then add the Frangelico (or whatever you’re using), egg yolks and ground hazelnuts and fold through..

Fold in the cooled, melted chocolate.

Then lighten the mixture with a large dollop of egg white, which you can beat in as roughly as you want, before gently folding the rest of them in a third at a time.

Pour into the prepared tin…

Place in the oven for 40 minutes or until the cake’s beginning to come away at the sides. Then let cool on a rack.

The cake will naturally sink after its been out of the oven for a while.

Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upwards and the nuts are golden-brown in parts: keep shaking the pan so that they don’t burn on one side and stay too pallid on others.

Transfer to a plate and let cool. This is imperative: if they go on the ganache while hot, it’ll turn oily.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the cream, liqueur or water and chopped chocolate, and heat gently.

Once the chocolate’s melted, take the pan off the heat and whisk until it reaches the right consistency to ice the top of the cake. At this stage, I added a tablespoon of Golden Syrup but that’s just me, you don’t need to do this. But personally, I thought it made the icing taste even better!

Spoon the chocolate icing over the top of the cake…

You could stop here. Nigella does. But I wanted a bit more icing over the top since it was so delicious, so I poured it around the sides so it drizzled over the sides. Mmmmmmmm….

And dot with the whole, toasted hazelnuts…

This is a beautiful cake. Even when I was making it, the smell of the toasted hazelnuts filled my flat with the most beautiful smell…I almost wanted to lick the air!