Nutella Layer Cake – and Happy Birthday to me!!

To prepare the chocolate cake, preheat the oven to 170ºC and grease two pans of approximately 20 cm in diameter and prepare a cupcakes pan with 6 cupcakes cups approximately. From each of the pans must come out 2 layers of sponge cake, so the cakes will be quite high. You will see that there is a lot of dough, but there are 2 large cakes and about 6 cupcakes. If you do not want to make the cupcakes, you can reduce the amount of the recipe to ¾ parts and will be enough for the cakes layers only.

In a bowl sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add the hazelnut flour and reserve. In another bowl mix the sugar with the oil. Incorporate the eggs and mix until it's integrated, you can do it perfectly by hand. Add half of the dry ingredients and blend until incorporated. Pour the coffee, milk and vanilla extract and mix a little more. Finally, incorporate the rest of the dry ingredients by mixing until there are no lumps.

Fill the cupcakes cups first, up to ¾ parts of their capacity and bake for about 25 minutes. Fill the baking pans with half the rest of the batter in each and bake for about 60 minutes. In any case, test the stick in the center of the cake before removing it from the oven. This cake is very moist and it takes time to bake, so be sure it is well cooked. Cool the cake completely on a rack.

To prepare the filling cream, we first make a white basic cream. Beat the mascarpone with the icing sugar until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the whipping cream that must be very cold and beat at high speed until it thickens, about 2 minutes.

Separate the cream into 2 parts, you will need less Nutella cream because it goes only in one layer, so take only ¼ part or so to put the Nutella. Obviously, if you want to do it all with Nutella or all with cacao, is up to you, but it is more beautiful using two different creams because they also have a different colour, Nutella cream is much paler than chocolate cream.

To the smallest cream part add the Nutella tablespoon and mix until evenly distributed. To the other part add the cocoa powder and mix well until it is homogeneous. Reserve the creams in the refrigerator until you use them.

To prepare the Italian meringue buttercream, you must first prepare the meringue. Heat the sugar with water in a saucepan. Introduce a kitchen thermometer to control the temperature of the syrup.

Meanwhile, beat the egg whites in the bowl mixer with the salt and vinegar at a low speed, so that it gets foamy. When the temperature of the thermometer reaches 100 ° C, raise the speed of the mixer to medium-high.

When the temperature of the syrup reaches 118 ° C, remove from the heat and without stopping the mixer, pour into the whites very slowly and in the form of a yarn while still beating the whites at medium-high speed. Be very careful and do not pour the syrup on the moving whisk or it can splatter and burn you.

Continue whipping at high speed for about 10 more minutes, until the meringue cools down. Before adding the butter make sure the bowl is cold, if necessary wait 5 or 10 minutes more for the meringue to cool.

Add butter little by little in pieces while continuing to beat at medium speed until all is integrated, add the vanilla extract and then increase the speed of the mixer and beat the mixture for 5 minutes more. There is a moment when it seems to be split, but at the last minute of mixing it takes the necessary consistency, do not freak out. Add the Nutella and beat a little more until it has been homogeneously distributed.

Now that you have all the parts of the cake ready, you can prepare everything to begin the assembly. Before starting, prepare all cake layers, level all of them at the same height and get them ready to go stacking. I also removed the edges using a round template about 2 cm smaller than the pan and cutting them with a knife. This ensures that the walls are straight and removes the caramelization.

In a rotating cake base, place a layer of sponge cake and cover with half the chocolate mascarpone cream. Cover with another layer of sponge cake and cover with Nutella mascarpone cream. Add another layer of cake and cover with remaining chocolate mascarpone cream. Finally, top with the last layer of sponge cake.

Frost the cake with a first thin layer of buttercream (crumbs stopper). Refrigerate the cake for at least 30 minutes for the first layer to harden. Remove the cake from the refrigerator and frost with the final coat of buttercream.

You will have plenty of buttercream left, but you must keep it for the cupcakes. To create the grated effect with Nutella, using a small spatula smeared in Nutella just create irregular strokes on the buttercream. With buttercream still soft, carefully paste using the spatula the chocolate sprinkles at the base of the cake.

Refrigerate the cake again for a minimum of 30 minutes for the second layer of buttercream to harden. It is very important to do this before pouring the chocolate ganaché above.

To prepare the chocolate ganaché, chop the chocolate into pieces in a bowl. Heat the cream in a saucepan and when it boils, pour it on the chocolate and let to rest for 1 minute. Mix until the cream and chocolate are combined and add the butter that will give it a lovely shine. Let the chocolate cool slightly before pouring it on the cake.

Pour the chocolate carefully, using a piping bag or a spoon creating the "drip" effect. Let the chocolate harden slightly, about 15 minutes. Decorate with the chocolates that you like and with some whole hazelnuts.

I stuffed the cupcakes with Nutella, to make it do a hole in the center of the cakes. Heat a little Nutella in the microwave for 30 seconds to make it more liquid. Fill the holes with Nutella and decorate the cupcakes with the buttercream you have left.

Using the rest of the liquid Nutella make a few threads on each cupcake, sprinkle chocolate sprinkles and place a Ferrero Rocher candy on top of each one.