Happy World Nutella Day!

To celebrate this joyous day of the year I have made a Nutella cake. Oh yes indeed! This is a Nigella recipe that I have tweaked. It's incredibly moist, dense and very rich but devilishly good. The cake is flourless therefore making it gluten free.





Ingredients
6 large eggs, separated
Pinch of salt
125g soft unsalted butter
400g Nutella (1 large jar)
1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum or water
100g ground hazelnuts (grind them yourself in a blender, add a little water to make a paste this makes the cake a lot more moist then adding the powdery ready ground stuff)
100g dark chocolate, melted
23cm Springform tin, greased and line

Genache Topping:
100g hazelnuts
125ml double cream
1 tablespoon Frangelico, rum or water
125g dark chocolate

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC, gas mark 4. In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and Nutella together, and 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 large dollop of egg white, which you can beat in as roughly as you want, before gently folding the rest of them in a third at a time.

• Pour into the prepared tin and cook for 40 minutes or until the cake's beginning to come away at the sides, then let cool on a rack.

• Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until the aroma wafts upwards and the nuts are golden-brown in parts. Transfer to a plate and let cool. This is imperative: if they go on the ganache while hot, it'll turn oily.

• In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the cream, liqueur or water and 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. Unmould the cooled cake carefully.

• Ice the top with the chocolate icing, and sprinkle with the whole, toasted hazelnuts. If you have used Frangelico, put shot glasses on the table and serve it with the cake.

 For more info on World Nutella Day and Nutella recipes visit Ms Adventures in Italy, Bleeding Espresso, and World Nutella Day...