Sunday 12 September 2010

Nutella Cake with Cinnamon Crumble

An open jar of Nutella is a dangerous thing! The only way to prevent me eating it a spoonful at a time is to cook with it, to make sure the others share it. This cake was inspired by several online, including the 'self frosting' cake here, but I've taken elements from several and made something unique, I think. If I make it again I will increase the base layer by half as much again, to make a deeper cake.

Ingredients
110g unsalted butter
110g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g ground hazelnuts or almonds
100g SR flour
50g dark chocolate chips

roughly 100g Nutella

Topping
55g unsalted butter
50g demerara sugar
70g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method
Make the crumb topping first - melt the butter in the microwave and stir in the other ingredients with a fork. Allow to cool while making the cake batter.
Prepare a 20cm(8") diameter springform cake tin, and preheat the oven to 180C.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, with a teaspoon of the flour and the vanilla extract. Lightly fold in the rest of the flour and ground nuts, then the chocolate chips.
Transfer the batter to the cake tin and level the surface.
Arrange heaped teaspoonsful of Nutella on top of the cake batter - I used six blobs around the sides and one in the middle - using roughly 100g of the spread (I weighed the jar before and after use). Use a skewer or cocktail stick to swirl the Nutella into the surface of the cake, trying not to go too deep into the batter.
Use your fingers to break up the topping into smaller pieces and crumble it over the surface of the cake.
Bake for 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and the cake batter is dry and cooked when tested with a probe.

This is a really good cake - moist base studded with chocolate chips, still gooey patches of Nutella peeking through the crumb topping, and a crunchy cinnamon flavoured topping. The Nutella rightly contributes the strongest flavour to the cake; the cinnamon is an added hint of flavour - just the right amount.

As I said earlier, my only change would be to make a deeper  base cake.

8 comments:

cocoa and coconut said...

Sounds beautiful! It will definitely become apart of my baking recipes very soon. Well done

Jane said...

Wow! That is one fantastic looking cake. My family would adore this.

Suelle said...

Thank you, both - I hope you try it!

The Caked Crusader said...

Looks gorgeous - I love using Nutella in baking; it has such good flavour and a lovely gooeyness!

Caroline said...

It looks delicious, I just wish I could find a Nutella non-nut substitute! All the chocolate spreads I've looked at have been predominantly sugar. Sigh!

I love the crumble - I've 'borrowed' that recipe from you a couple of times now and it's really successful on cakes, thankyou!

Suelle said...

C - you're right, melting the butter for the crumble makes it so much better - I'm surprised it's taken me so long to find it out! LOL!

Shame you can't find a decent nutless chocolate spread, although Nutella has a really high sugar content too (55%), despite the advertising which stresses the milk, chocolate and nuts. Blobs of ganache might work in this sort of situation.

Celia said...

Wicked, Suelle! :) I love how Nutella goes when it's baked..sort of crumbly and super-chocolatey. Love the crumble topping as well!

Note to C: have you ever tried just making chocolate ganache from cream and chocolate, and keeping a jar in the fridge? It's a gorgeous substitute for Nutella.. :)

Snowy said...

It looks delicious Suelle. Have a jar of Nutella to use up before we move, so it's the perfect recipe. Love the idea of the crumble topping too. Thank you.