It was National Nutella Day on Saturday 5th February. I wanted to test out a recipe on the day but this didn’t happen. Saturday was my “catching up day” at home and I also needed to actually go out and buy some Nutella as I didn’t have any in my baking cupboard. Do you like Nutella? If you do, do you ever bake with it or is it a favourite for Pancake Day or on toast?

I daren’t buy Nutella because I know that as soon as I do, it vanishes in our house. I’m not the culprit even though I love it. When I come to using it in a recipe, I go to the cupboard to get the jar out and I find it empty or with only one teaspoonful of Nutella left in the jar! This infuriates me so much. The same happens with my Biscoff spread. It does my head in. No matter what I say, the Nutella or Biscoff monster is there helping him/herself to my supplies. The lazy so and so doesn’t even wash the jar out and put it in the recycling!

I really wanted to have a go at making some hazelnut sandwich biscuits along the lines of some I made a couple of years ago using a packet of Hazelnut M&Ms which I found when on holiday in Iceland. I turned them into some M&M Sandwich cookies with the Nutella like the “jam” in the middle of the sandwich.

The original recipe which I adapted was from this one:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/hazelnut-chocolate-cookie-sandwiches

I thought about making this recipe again but I thought that if I had biscuits like this around at home, they would get eaten all at once and not necessarily by the Nutella/ Biscoff Spread Eating Monster in our house. Instead I thought of making it into a cake that I could double up as a dessert.

If you look up Jane’s Patisserie’s Nutella Brownies recipe, then this is what I based my Nutella cake on. Jane’s recipe uses Ferrero Rocher chocolates to decorate hers but I didn’t have any. What I did have was some whole, blanched hazelnuts without their shells on! I used the whole bag weighing 125g and this seemed to be just the right amount for the mixture.

The recipe only uses four ingredients: Nutella, flour, eggs and the hazelnuts. No extra sugar or fat needed as that’s already in the Nutella! I was shocked to read that Nutella contains 80 calories a teaspoon!

Jane’s recipe also is baked in a 20cm/ 8″ square tin but I chose to make mine in a circular loose bottomed sandwich tin of the same dimensions. I think that I would have personally taken the cake out of the oven 5 minutes sooner as it did appear a bit more cake like than brownie like to me when I took it out of the oven.

I enjoyed the taste of the Nutella Cake but it did come out a bit too cakey for my liking. I ate a piece for Sunday dessert but wished I’d had some double cream or some ice cream to go on the side.

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx