Roopa
My good friends Marcus and Michelle got engaged this month, so obviously a cake was in order. They both LOVE Nutella so it needed that, but I also wanted to incorporate M&Ms (their names both start with M, so M and M…hahaha I’m so clever…). Since it was for an engagement, I also wanted hearts to be involved somehow. After doodling a few sketches, I decided I wanted it to be a heart cake. I also had some remnant peanut butter icing from these cupcakes, so I filled the cake with that. Peanut butter + Nutella = amazing.
CHOCOLATE CAKE
- 2 cups flour
- 80g cocoa powder
- 20g chocolate malt powder
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 450 ml hot coffee
- 320g sugar
- 2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
- 200 ml oil
- ½ cup applesauce
- 2 tbsp. vanilla extract
(the measurements on this are sort of shady, so most things are easier by weight)
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat the oven to 320F. Line 2 8" or 9" cake pans with parchment paper, and grease the sides with shortening.
- Brew coffee.
- Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Combine coffee, apple cider vinegar, sugar, oil, applesauce, and vanilla. I mix the coffee and sugar first to melt the sugar.
- Pour liquid mixture into dry mixture and stir until combined.
- Fill cake pans evenly, and bake in middle rack for 30 – 35 minutes. Rotate pans after 25 minutes.
- Let cool for 10-15 minutes, and remove from cake pans. Let cakes cool on cooling racks, and saran wrap and freeze when fully cooled.
NUTELLA ICING
- 1 cup (227g) butter, unsalted
- 140g Nutella
- pinch of salt
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 1 tbsp. milk
DIRECTIONS
- Beat softened butter until creamy, and add Nutella, salt, and vanilla.
- Add icing sugar, and beat until well mixed.
- Add milk as needed for desired consistency.
Mmmmmmmm Nutella
Once the cakes were frozen, I cut them into a heart shape. I traced out the circular cake pan shape onto a piece of paper, folded it in half, and cut into a vaguely heart like shape. I then used that as a template to cut the cakes. I then filled the cakes with the peanut butter icing and did a crumb coat.
After crumb coating the cake, I froze it for about 15 minutes. I then proceeded to ice and decorate the cake. I used a bench scraper to get the sides flat. I’m not the best at getting cakes perfect, but the bench scraper did work really well!
I just bought a little decorating pen for the writing, since I was too lazy to go buy piping gel. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!
Chateau Gateau 