Nua cake with Nutella cream and dark chocolate cream

• 20 minutes to prepare • 45 minutes to cook • Serves 14

I can't make everybody happy. I am not a Nutella jar.

 

Our generation started early.
At the beginning, there were the 15-grams portions. They had the shape of small jars and they were made of sealed aluminum. They produced a nice click-clack sound. Click-clack (one), click-clack (two), click-clack (and it was already too late).
Then, it was the turn of the glasses depicted with comic strips. Of course, it was not for the Nutella itself. "We do not want to leave the collection incomplete!!", we lied. At that point, most of us had already lost ourselves in the fog of Nutella.

Nutella addiction is a social phenomenon.
There are those who need the daily dose, there are those who make the overdose in difficult times. None of them would be able to imagine their lives without.
We are adults now, but we still ignore the mystery behind this marvellous cream with cocoa and hazelnuts, how it makes millions of unsuspecting people slave to the deadly sin of gluttony. However, we can't kick the habit of eating it, at least any time we feel like reliving an emotional feeling, a happy memory, a hug, grandma.

So, with no shame and no regret, we keep on consuming Nutella, moderately. For instance, by mixing it with some cream cheese to obtain a tastelicious but lighter cream for our Nua cake (check Nua cake's original version here).
The cake-of-the-day will be filled with a combination of Nutella cream and dark-chocolate cream. Delightful, blissful, yummy, scrumptious...

 

Here are ingredients for a 14-serving recipe (26-cm diameter baking pan):

For the pastry 

200 g sugar
280 g flour 00
20 g dark cocoa powder
1 sachet vanilla baking powder
100 ml milk
130 ml seed oil 
4 eggs


For the filling

100 g Nutella
200 g cream cheese
30 g dark cocoa powder
60 g sugar
125 g milk
1 egg yolk
125 g dark chocolate
10 g flour 00


For the garnish

1 fistful chopped hazelnuts

1. Preheat oven to 160°
2. Beat eggs with sugar until stiff for about 15 minutes 
3. Sift and gradually incorporate all the dry ingredients (cocoa, flour, baking powder) alternating them with pastry's liquid ingredients (milk and oil). Meanwhile, keep mixing with an electric beater until smooth 
4. To prepare the dark chocolate cream, beat the egg yolk with 30 g of sugar with an electric mixer until mixture is puffy and fluffy. Heat the milk in a saucepan and add it to the mixture of egg and sugar
5. Incorporate the sifted flour and beat with a whisk to have no lumps. Transfer the mixture into a saucepan, add the chopped dark chocolate and melt over low heat. Mix well and work it with a whip until the cream thickens
6. Transfer the dark chocolate cream into a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Let it cool down
7. To prepare the Nutella cream, beat the remaining 30 g of sugar with the softened cream cheese. Add cocoa powder and Nutella. Whisk until the mixture is smooth
8. Grease and flour the baking pan, pour and level the mixture. Take both the dark chocolate cream and the Nutella cream. Spread mounds of both the creams with a spoon, covering the entire surface of the cake. Sprinkle chopped hazelnuts on top to garnish
9. Bake the cake at 160° for 45 minute. (Do not open the oven for at least the first half of the baking time and perform the toothpick test at the end, to be sure baking is done)
   
10. Leave the cake to cool a bit in the oven with the door open, then out of the oven. Garnish the top with some icing sugar, if you like

Nutrition Facts are detailed in the table below. Data is provided per serving.

Nutella. The main reason why Italian people buy bread.