Dense, nutty dark chocolate cake sandwiched with pillowy chocolate nutella frosting – the ultimate birthday treat! Jump to Recipe
This past weekend has involved excessive time staring at my laptop screen, alternatively typing a few words and getting distracted by a facebook notification or instagram scroll. Moments of inspiration result in a full paragraph or two, which clearly must be followed by a treat break (i.e. reward) – coffee, or a slice of the pistachio & plum cake haunting me from the kitchen counter. Then it’s back to staring at the document, checking the word count and rifling through notes and resources. So no, this isn’t me writing a blog post, when words seem to flow relatively easily and rapidly without the restriction of topics, word counts, marking criteria and references. It’s a 5000 word psychiatry assignment that needs to achieve a balance of narrative and fact, history and analysis, story-telling and medicine. AND I’m a fantastic procrastinator.
The upshot is that my desk, messy with scrawled papers and charging cables, has begun to feel too much like a place of monotony and effort – so I’ve shifted my blog writing elsewhere. Instead, a cafe window seat with a view of the street, an uncluttered modern bench space and best of all, no internet (!) has to be the least distracting environment I’ve found. It’s accompanied by a flat white (and maybe a sweet treat, depending on how extravagant I’m feeling) and a background hum of music and customers – making it feel like a place I’ve chosen to be, and a place I enjoy being, rather than the dead, stifling silence of a library. I wedge it in somewhere between hospital placement and tutorials as a productive way to break up a Tuesday. A treat, rather than the grind of assignment slog. Do any of you find it easier to work in cafes rather than from home?
Because the last thing I want is for blog writing and recipe development to blend into the slightly more stressful side of life that is work and study. It isn’t a job or an income, so it needs to remain an outlet and something I love in order to continue. A hobby I want to do and take time to do well, not something I have to do, if that makes sense. Separating work spaces helps to avoid blurring that boundary, as does a regular self-check not to feel pressured to photograph a post each week – it’s still a priority, but not number one.
It also helps to eat insanely decadent flourless chocolate hazelnut layer cake like this one – it may be a celebration cake, but I’m sure you could come up with any number of reasons to make it. It’s been a regular go-to recipe for years, the original printed sheet covered in creases, cocoa powder remnants and chocolate finger prints. The opposite end of the spectrum from the soft, cakey crumb of this kind of chocolate birthday cake, it is dense, dark and the kind of cake where your mouth almost explodes with the chocolateness of it all.
I used to make a more diminutive single layered version, but my brother’s 16th birthday gave me an excuse to transform it. He’s the biggest nutella-lover/addict I know, regularly smearing his toast so thick there’s more chocolate than bread – he’d live off it if Mum let him. I needed to find a way to incorporate that into a cake without literally gifting him a bucket of nutella, and in a way that the rest of us would actually enjoy too (to be honest, I find nutella overwhelmingly sickly on its own). I swapped out half the ground almonds for toasted hazelnut meal and added a rich chocolate-hazelnut frosting, which must be the most luscious (if I can use that word?!) frosting I’ve ever made. It’s smooth and silky, spreads on to the cake with ease, and no one could resist eating leftovers straight by the spoonful. The cake uses beaten egg whites to stay light as there is no other raising agent, and the combination of hot coffee, melted dark chocolate and dutch cocoa give the richest chocolate taste I could manage. Don’t just make it if you’re gluten free – flour in this case only gets in the way, so it’s not a sacrifice to leave it out. Plus there is no fiddling around with crumb coats of frosting, leveling cakes or fancy decorating – you literally smear it on each layer and you’re done!
Cook’s notes:
- I personally only own 2 x 20cm cake tins, so I kept the third cake mix in a separate bowl and baked it once the first two were done – this worked fine.
- For a single layer cake, halve the mixture and bake in one 23cm round cake tin (halve or third the icing then too)
- 2/3 cup dutch cocoa (70g)
- 2/3 cup hot espresso coffee (or instant dissolved in hot water)
- 300 g good quality dark chocolate
- 300 g unsalted butter
- 2 cups (370g) firmly packed brown sugar
- 1 cup almond meal (125g)
- 1 cup hazelnut meal (or toasted hazelnuts, skinned and ground to an almond meal consistency)
- 8 eggs, separated
- 225 g unsalted butter, just softened but cool
- 1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted (190g)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 125 g dark chocolate, melted and cooled
- 2/3 cup (200g) nutella
- 1 tablespoon cream
- pinch of salt
- berries and cherries and chopped hazelnuts to decorate
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Grease and line 3 x 20cm round cake tins. Preheat the oven to 160°C.
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In a heatproof bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter, watching carefully and stirring to ensure it doesn’t burn.
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In a large bowl, whisk together the cocoa and hot coffee until smooth.
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Stir the chocolate mixture into the cocoa. Add the brown sugar, ground almonds, ground hazelnuts and egg yolks. Whisk to fully combine.
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In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixture until soft peaks form. Adding a third of the egg whites at a time, gently fold into the chocolate mixture.
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Divide mixture between the three pans.
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Bake until a skewer comes out just clean with a few crumbs, about 45 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack to cool.
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In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the icing sugar and butter. Beat on low speed for about a minute. Add vanilla and beat until well combined.
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Add the cool chocolate and beat on medium until smooth, about 2-3 minutes.
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Add the nutella, cream and a pinch of salt and beat on med-high speed for another minute.
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Place one layer of the cake on your serving plate. Top with a third of the frosting and spread to the edges with an offset spatula (see pictures for thickness).
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Repeat with the remaining layers.
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Decorate with chopped hazelnuts, strawberries and cherries.
i feel you. it’s almost finals season, but somehow my professor were cruel enough to have us do presentations in the upcoming weeks, then gleefully give us written finals, too. sigh. good luck on your paper though!!
also very pro-nutella, so this frosting sounds downright spoonable.
Transforming your blogging space into a cafe space is down right genius and something I need to do to keep it different. Love the way you think.
I have this AWWeekly recipe too! its a constant at birthdays for us! So delicious 🙂 But this frosting is downright gorgeous (you can totally call it luscious!) Beautiful posting as ever Claudia x
yum! also, great idea to switch up where you do your blog stuff versus school stuff. i should do that more often! xo
DAMN. This looks amaaaaazing! xx
<3 <3 PS I watched your pie on thefeedfeed instagram this morning and WOW I'm inspired to use my pasta machine to make pretty braids. xx
I so feel you, especially regarding the blog being a creative outlet rather than a job/income. I’m going to try moving my blog writing to a different space than my studying, because it’s all jumbled together at this point (and yes, IG notifications definitely intrude on my studying… must turn them off!!). Having that mental separation must be liberating – I’m going to try it! This cake is super lovely Claudia – I love the blown-out candle shot, with the smoke gently wisping out… beauty!
I have a friends who have deleted instagram off their phone completely, but I think I enjoy it too much to do that – just need to set more limits in terms of switching it off while studying! Thanks Betty!! <3
This looks so delicious and decadent! Just beautiful Claudia xo
Thanks Fatimah! x
First off, this cake looks absolutely gorgeous and you captured it beautifully! Finding balance and having clear separations in our mental/physical space is so important and that is something that I most definitely need to work on!
Thanks so much Bella! It surprised me how much physical separation impacts the mental side as well – and I still have work to do there too! xx
Oh my, I have just started job hunt and I am already stressing over how I will manage blogging and a job. Kudos to you for managing both and still creating such beautiful food.
It is doable, even if it means spending a little less time on the blog / posting a little less frequently. I just try to make the most of the weekends that I don’t have much on to get ahead with recipes and photos, and then I can fit in the post writing around uni or in the evening. Good luck for the job hunt too!! x
Chocolate + hazelnut are 2 of my all time favorites!!!! super yum and love these images too
Me too!!! Such a classic combo, can’t beat it. Thanks Christiann!
This cake looks so so so delicious – wish I was eating a piece right now with a strong cup of coffee. Best of luck on your paper – I remember those (old college) days where I would even use my blog as an excuse to avoid homework. ha!
Thanks Shelly!! Me too actually – I’m replying to this in an incredibly boring lecture so chocolate cake and coffee sounds amazing. x
This cake is gorgeous! The work/blog/ life balance can be a tricky one sometimes. I recall those days when I would make the fanciest of cakes to put off writing that paper. Best of luck, I’m sure you’ll ace it!<3
Thank you! I figure fancy cake making is still a more productive form of procrastination than scrolling through facebook or instagram… and then you get to eat it too! <3
I totally hear you on maintaining that work and passion balance when it comes to writing and just getting on with your life and family. It’s hard sometimes with all the distractions so well done on your cafe choice to sit with the nice kind of distractions that will inspire you. I am salivating already over the hazelnut filling. Yes, please !
Glad you agree, thanks Cindy! <3
What percentage dark chocolate, please?
Would love to make this, thank you!
I used 70%! Would love to know how it goes x
Thank you! I might make this for Easter – I’ll let you know how it went if I do!
Claudia,
I made this for Easter, halving the recipe and using two 6″ cake pans (small family).
It was PHENOMENAL!!!
Oh so glad it went well for you!! That is a great idea to halve it and use 6 inch cake tins – I think I’ll do that next time when I’m just making it for my housemates. Thanks for letting me know Juliet! x
hi claudia, first of all this looks amazing and I m planing to make a birthday cake tmr.. just wanna have this coffee part clear .. If I dint have espresso .. u said can use instant coffee with hot water.. what is the ratio for this.
hope to hear from you soon.
thx
Hi Saraiya, thank you! The coffee ratio isn’t too important – I would probably go for 2 teaspoons of instant coffee to one cup.
Would love to know how it goes!
Love love this recipe. Can’t wait to make it this weekend <3 Any idea on storing the frosting and/or cake rounds overnight?
Thanks Alexis! You could easily make the cake rounds the night before – I would store them wrapped in cling-wrap in an airtight container at room temperature. The frosting would be best made on the day if possible! x
Can the cake be made the day before and assembled the day of the party?
Never mind. Just say your reply to a similar question.
This cake sounds amazing! Can’t wait to make it!
Question…is the dark chocolate sweetened or unsweetened?
Also not sure what almond meal is.
Hi Tim!
Unsweetened dark chocolate is best – I used about 70% cocoa. And almond meal is just what ground almonds are called here in Australia! 🙂
Hope that helps, let me know how it goes!
Looveed the recipe! Can´t wait to make this at home…
By almond meal you mean almond flour? And what about the hazelnuts… Are they whole or grinded?
Thanks!
Hi Sofia! Yes almond flour / ground almonds (it’s called almond meal here in Australia!). And the hazelnuts are also ground.
hope that helps! 🙂
Ok I have a lot to say so hopefully I can make this review somewhat coherent.
This recipe caught my eye because a) those beautiful pictures! and b) I was hoping for something gluten free to suit the coeliac guests.
So it was my mum’s birthday celebration and like every occasion I volunteered to make the cake. There were about 30 people to cook for so I doubled the recipe and made it 25cm wide as 4 layers (and it was so rich that you could only consume one slice anyway)!! Although I did decide to go with simple whipped chocolate ganache instead of the Nutella. While it was absolutely DELICIOUS, moist and chocolate filled (all the criteria for a great cake of course) there were also some issues I encountered.
I have only once or twice before made a flourless chocolate cake, and I knew logically they are not the same structurally. I believe the fact that I use quite a large tin making the layers quite thin contributed the fact that it was impossible to keep any layer in one piece. It would completely break at any attempt at being handled, I ended up creating a little bit of a jigsaw and making extra icing to disguise this and it actually looked surprisingly normal!
Despite all this I can say that I am for sure going to be adding it to my collection of recipes and hopefully I will have more luck making a smaller scale on next time!
Hey Bec, so sorry for the extremely delayed reply! So glad the cake went down well. Flourless chocolate cakes are always VERY rich and the beaten egg whites can make them a bit more fragile, so yes the thinner you make the layers the more easily they would break. Doubling the recipe for the 4x 25cm tins should have given you a similar thickness cake though.
The other thing I do before I stack up the layers if I feel that they are a bit fragile is to put them in the freezer for ~30min or so – it firms them up enough that they are much easier to handle.
Hope that helps, and yes everything is easier on a smaller scale! xx
Hi! I made this last easter and LOVED it (even though I forgot to get enough chocolate for the frosting and had to melt down a bag of dark chocolate dove easter eggs). Have you (or anyone!!) ever done a flourless chocolate cake in cupcake form? I want to bake this for my office christmas party but I think cupcakes or mini loaves would be easier to cut and share. Just worried about adjusting the bake time.
Thanks!
Hi Alexis, so glad you enjoyed it!! I haven’t made them in cupcake form but you definitely could, just keep a close eye on them in the oven. I imagine they would probably take about 20-25 min but I would start checking from 15 or so. Hope that helps and I realise this reply is very late so hope they were successful for your Christmas party! x
Seriously this cake is perfect in every way! That slice looks as if it’s moving right in my direction, lol!!
Hi! I was scouring the internet for gluten free cake recipes for my daughters 7th birthday. I presented them all to her and this is her favorite! She isn’t gluten free but some of her friends are and I wanted to be inclusive at her party. I am going to omit the coffee part and is there anything else you would recommend in its place? Thanks!
Hi again! No, nothing in its place – maybe just an extra tablespoon of vanilla essence. The coffee just acts as a flavour booster but isn’t necessary (but it also doesn’t make it taste like coffee if that is what you are concerned about).
I made the layers the other day and the party is this evening, do you think I can frost it now and eat in in 5 hours or so?
Hi Jenny, sorry I missed this comment. You definitely could – hope it went well!
Thank you so much for the recipe. I made it for a birthday and it was so chocolatey and delicious it was a huge hit.