Birthday Nutella Cake

My husband had a big birthday last month. 40th. I always make famous and complicated cakes for his birthdays. This time I wanted to bake famous German Dark Forest Cake (Schwarzwalder Kirshtorte), but he said no, reminding me that last time the cake didn't turn well because we didn't have good sour cherries, and here in the US it is almost impossible to find them in the fall, even frozen. So I said, ok, let's do something different and new.

My husband loves Nutella, kids too, so I thought, let's create an easy Nutella cake that everybody would like. I was doing some research on the Internet but didn't find anything appealing, so I came up with my own recipe. I chose chocolate genoise cake as a basis that pairs well with Nutella frosting. My idea was to keep taste of Nutella dominant as much as possible. And, I wanted rustic look too.

You need for sponge:

1 1/3cup (160g) flour

1/3 cup (50g) cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

8 large eggs

1 cup (200g) sugar

5 tablespoons butter  (heat the butter and remove the white part)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

9-inch round baking pan lined with parchment paper

For syrup:

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup white rum

You need for frosting:

175g semi-sweet or dark chocolate

100ml heavy cream

50g butter

300g Nutella

Chopped hazelnuts for decoration.

Steps:

Sift flour with cocoa powder three times. Add salt and mix it.

Heat the oven to 355F (175C).

Pour clarified butter into a pan and stir in vanilla and cook on a very low heat until hot. It should be hot when you add it to the batter.

Make a double boiler: a pan with simmering water and a glass bowl over it. Using whisk beat the eggs and sugar in the glass bowl. When egg mixture becomes warm and start to thicken remove the bowl from the heat. Continue to mix eggs with electric mixer, on highest speed, until the volume triples, becomes pale yellow and holds a ribbon when whisk is lifted.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to eggs and fold in gently with rubber spatula. Add the remaining flour-cocoa mixture and fold in until it is well blended. Do not over-mix it, otherwise sponge will be too dense. Place 1 cup of batter into the hot clarified butter with vanilla extract and mix together. Than transfer it to batter and gently fold it in.

Spoon the batter into baking pan and bake it for about 30 minutes. The center should be firm enough.

When the sponge is done, remove it from the pan and place it on a cooling rack to cool down.

In the meantime, prepare frosting. Melt the chocolate in heavy cream and butter, in double boiler, over simmering water. Remove it from the heat and fold in Nutella. Cool down the frosting until you get right consistency to spread it.

Cut the sponge into three even layers. First, brush the top of  the first sponge layer with 1/3 of syrup, then spread 1/3 of frosting... do the same with remaining sponge layers, syrup and frosting.

Sprinkle chopped hazelnuts over the top of cake. They always add nice texture and flavor to the cake. Keep the cake in a fridge covered with a dome. Cakes are always better a day after.

Keep the cake out of the fridge for at least 45 minutes before serving. 

Happy birthday, daddy!