Nutella Cake
A fudgy chocolate layer cake coated with dreamy whipped Nutella frosting.
Nutella is one of those flavors that is universally beloved. My boys, Lachlan and George, can truly devour a whole container, so it’s always fun to use Nutella to make some delicious desserts for our family to enjoy. In my cookbook Preppy Kitchen Super Easy, I have a really easy and amazingly delicious Flourless Nutella Cake (p. 265) that I highly recommend you try. But if you want something a bit more show-stopping with more play of texture and drama, this Nutella cake is definitely for you!
I’ve taken my all-time-favorite classic chocolate cake recipe and given it a twist. The cake itself is delicate, fudgy, airy, and so chocolatey. It’s the vegetable oil and sour cream that come together with the perfect amount of flour and, of course, a good amount of cocoa powder and dark chocolate to produce a moist and tender cake. I would say the best secret ingredient here is probably the hot coffee. It’s used to melt the chocolate for the batter, and it really amps up the cocoa powder's flavor.
The Nutella flavor really comes in the form of the frosting. Here we have a beautifully silky whipped frosting, chock-full of Nutella. When you’re making the frosting, it’s really important to use room-temperature butter, which is fairly soft. This will help it whip up fluffy and cohesive with the Nutella. You should feel free to whip it for a while if the frosting does not seem lusciously spreadable. Or if it seems a little thick or maybe even dry, add a bit more of the heavy whipping cream. This will give you a beautiful frosting that is slack enough to spread without tearing your delicate cake layers.
My final tip for the frosting is to whip it up just before using it so that it has a texture that’s perfect for decorating the cake. If you make it and it sits for more than 15 minutes, it can turn stiff. Just give it another quick beating to soften it back up.
