Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

Here’s my first, fumbling attempt at one of those here’s-a-recipe-I-made-with-pictures-I-took-during-the-process posts that all food blogs seem to do these days.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my “Welcome” post, I am a Nigella Lawson fan. Love her books, love her TV shows, love her, period. You’ll be seeing numerous references to her on this blog in future (assuming that I’m diligent enough to keep it going). This particular cake is called Chocolate Hazelnut Cake in English, Torta alla Gianduia in Italian, or Nutella Cake if you don’t want to be posh about it. As it turns out, it’s also gluten-free, should that be of interest to you. The complete recipe is at the end of this post.

You begin by beating egg whites until stiff.

If you have multiple bowls for your standing mixer, you do the egg whites in one bowl and then make the rest of the batter in your second, clean bowl. If you’re me, you dump the egg whites in another bowl and sally forth with the same mixer bowl. In go the egg yolks, butter, Nutella (I said this was gluten-free, not healthy), your liqueur of choice, ground hazelnuts, and melted chocolate. Mix that until smooth, and you get something like this:

Next to the chocolate mixture is a springform pan that is greased and lined with parchment paper. And I probably should have mentioned preheating the oven to 350 degrees F before now. 

Take a large dollop of your egg whites and stir it into the chocolate mixture. Then fold in the remaining egg whites, which is a slightly messy business, at least for me. The resulting batter will look rather like this:

You then put the batter into the prepped pan and bake it for about 40 minutes. It should look something like this:

Note that it looks a bit rough on top; that’s OK, as chocolate ganache can cover a multitude of sins. My cake collapsed somewhat as it cooled—it started out about 2 inches high, but ended up about 1 1/2 inches by the time it was cool. Nigella doesn’t say anything about this, so I made an executive decision and declared, in a loud, clear voice, “That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Reactions to this announcement were mixed.

Anyway, you make a ganache out of chocolate and cream, and use that to ice the cake. You then decorate the surface with peeled, toasted hazelnuts. The people I served it to seemed to enjoy it.

From Nigella Lawson’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking

For the cake:

6 large eggs, separated

pinch of salt

1/2 cup soft unsalted butter

13 ounces Nutella (1 jar)

1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum, or water [I used Grand Marnier, b/c I had it on hand]

scant 1/2 cup ground hazelnuts

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted

9-inch springform pan, greased and lined with parchment or wax paper

For the icing:

4 ounces peeled hazelnuts

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum, or water

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry (best to use a mixer for this). In a separate bowl, beat the butter and Nutella together, then add the Frangelico (or whatever you’re using), egg yolks, and ground hazelnuts. Fold in the cooled, melted chocolate, then lighten the mixture with a dollop of egg white, which you can beat in as roughly as you want, before gently folding in the rest of the egg whites, a third at a time. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes or until the cake is beginning to come away from the sides. Cool on a rack.

Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upward and the nuts are golden brown in parts: keep shaking the pan so they don’t burn on one side and stay pallid on others. Transfer to a plate and let cool. This is imperative; if they go on the ganache while hot, they’ll turn oily.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the cream liqueur or water, 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 [NB: I chilled mine to get it to spreading consistency]. Unmold the cooled cake carefully, leaving it on the base as it will be too difficult to get such a damp cake off in one piece. Ice the top with the chocolate icing, and dot thickly with the whole, toasted hazelnuts.