Nutella Cake - ultra decadent

Nutella cake is made with fluffy chocolate cake layers, Nutella filling and silky smooth Nutella buttercream frosting. It's the perfect cake for the chocolate lover in your family, I bet they won't be able to eat just one piece!

I am slightly obsessed with Nutella, so it was only natural that I used my chocolate cake recipe to inspire this Nutella cake recipe. I've also made other variations using my chocolate cake recipe including a S'mores Cake and Chocolate Blueberry Cake.

Why You'll Love this Nutella Cake

• The fluffy chocolate cake layers are amplified by coffee within the batter. Not to mention the cake is incredibly easy to make - we're talking only two bowls, no fancy equipment!!
• Who doesn't love nutella? I for one can eat it by the spoonful straight out of the container -- so adding it to my Swiss meringue buttercream recipe was a no brainer.
• It's a simple spin on a classic chocolate cake recipe that will impress your friends and family. I'm positive your kids are going to love this one!

Ingredients Needed for Nutella Cake

Here you'll see the main ingredients required in this nutella cake. See the recipe cards below for quantities.

Chocolate Cake

For this nutella cake, we use my classic chocolate cake recipe as the base for our cake layers. You'll see the ingredients needed below and can jump to the recipe clicking the link in the recipe card or in the sentence above.

• All Purpose Flour - Make sure you use all purpose flour and not cake flour. Cake flour is too fine and the cake will not hold up.
• Granulated Sugar
• Unsweetened Cocoa Powder - I prefer unsweetened because sweetened cocoa will make the cake just too sweet!
• Baking Soda - assists with rise of the cake.
• Baking Powder - helps the cake rise.
• Salt
• Vegetable Oil - adds incredible moisture to the cake.
• Hot Coffee - a secret ingredient to intensify the chocolate flavor of your cake.
• Buttermilk - see below for a substitution if you don't have buttermilk.
• Pure Vanilla Extract
• Eggs

Nutella Buttercream Frosting

• Egg Whites
• Granulated Sugar
• Unsalted Butter
• Pure Vanilla Extract
• Nutella

Nutella Filling

• Nutella

Chocolate Ganache

• Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
• Heavy Whipping Cream

How to Make Nutella Buttercream Frosting

• Wipe down your mixing bowl, paddle and whisk attachment with a small amount of white vinegar. This will prevent any fat residue from coming into contact with the meringue. If your meringue comes in contact with fat residue it can cause your whipped up, puffy meringue to deflate—the opposite of what we want!
• Do not let any egg yolk into your egg white/sugar mixture. Egg yolk = fat = not good for your meringues stability! If yolk gets into your mixture, your meringue will not fluff up.
• Make sure your butter is room temperature. Butter that is room temperature incorporates into the meringue fully. If your butter is too warm or too cold your buttercream will not whip up properly —initially that is! (see below, troubleshooting)
• Use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature of your egg white and sugar mixture to make sure you cook it to 160 degrees F. If you do not have a candy thermometer you can use the finger dip test. Take your index finger and thumb and dip them into your warm mixture. Rub your fingers together to feel for any sugar granules. If there are palpable sugar granules, continue to heat your mixture. Stop when you can no longer feel any sugar granules between your two fingers.

Troubleshooting Nutella Buttercream Frosting

If your buttercream frosting initially looks soupy or too soft, your butter was likely too soft when you added it. Don't worry, this is fixable.

1. Place the entire mixing bowl into the fridge for about 15 minutes
2. Remove the bowl from the fridge and re-whip it in your electric stand mixer using the paddle attachment for about 5 minutes or until it's light and fluffy.
3. Don't worry if it looks curdled at this point. Continue to whip it until the buttercream warms up and comes together.

If your Nutella buttercream curdles, your butter was too cold when you added it. Here's how to fix it! We need to warm the buttercream up, so.

1. Continue to mix it on high speed. Place your hands on the outside of the mixing bowl. The warmth from your hands will warm up the mixture and help it come together again more quickly. Eventually your buttercream will come together, however this may take 3-5 minutes of mixing on high speed.
2. If this is taking a long time, you can use a hair blowdryer on the outside of the bowl to warm it up. Please note, I have a blowdryer strictly for warming my mixing bowl. Do not blow warm air right onto the buttercream, only the outside of the bowl.

How to Assemble the Cake

1. Place your first chocolate cake layer on your cake board.

1. Apply your nutella buttercream frosting to the top of the cake.
2. Using a piping bag, drizzle nutella on top of the nutella buttercream frosting. Make sure you don't drizzle too close to the edge of the cake or the nutella will slip out the sides when you stack your next cake layer on top.

1. Repeat with remaining two cake layers. Cover cake in nutella Swiss Meringue buttercream. Chill cake after completing crumb coat to ensure your cake isn’t wobbly and doesn’t accumulate a lot of crumbs while you are smoothing it out. Please note the image below shows vanilla frosting as a crumb coat, not Nutella.

1. Apply your base frosting and chill cake for at least 25 minutes. It's important to have a very cold cake when applying your chocolate drip.
2. Spoon chocolate ganache drip to the top of the cake. I prefer to use a spoon to achieve my drips because I can better control the quantity of chocolate in each drip. Next I pour the remaining ganache on top of the cake and spread it evenly with my offset spatula.
3. Decorate the cake with dollops of buttercream using the Wilton 1M piping tip and ferrero rocher chocolates!

Substitutions

• Eggs - instead of eggs, you can use unsweetened applesauce. For every egg required, add ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce.
• Gluten Free - use gluten flour instead of all purpose flour to make this gluten free. I like this Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1:1 Flour.

Storage

This cake should be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Once the cake is cut open, place a piece of plastic wrap on the exposed cake to prevent it from drying out.

I do not recommend freezing frosted cake.

Make Ahead: If you'd like to, you can make your cake layers ahead of time and wrap them tightly in plastic wrap. Store them at room temperature for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months. When you're ready to frost your cake, you'll need to take the frozen cake layers out of the freezer and thaw on the counter for about 3 hours.

Equipment

For this recipe you will need an electric stand mixer. We make Nutella Swiss meringue buttercream which requires egg whites to be whipped into stiff peaks. While you may be able to do this with a hand mixer, it is extremely challenging.

For the cake layers themselves, you can actually use simply a bowl with a whisk!

You'll need either three 6'' cake pans or two 8'' cake pans.

Top Tip

Refrigerate your cake as you are filling it. Nutella frosting is slightly more soft than regular Swiss meringue buttercream. We are also adding Nutella between the layers. This makes it more challenging to ensure the cake stays straight while crumb coating. I recommend refrigerating your cake layers immediately after adding the nutella and once the frosting has set, add the next cake layer on top.

FAQ About Nutella Cake

Related

Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:

Chocolate Cake Recipe