Cocoa cake with Nutella and orange cream filling

• 20 minutes to prepare • 35 minutes to cook • Serves 10

You can't buy happiness.

 But you can buy Nutella, and that's kind of the same thing.

 

Cocoa cake with Nutella and orange cream is the perfect dessert to say goodbye to the winter on a rainy, boring March day. It is a delicious cake in which the perfume of oranges perfectly matches the taste of cocoa and Nutella.
This cocoa cake does not contain butter so that you can get rid of that sweet tooth without feeling guilty. Softness is given by a little oil, whose slightly citrusy taste marries the intense flavor of cocoa.
You can make it suitable for lactose intolerant guests, too: you just have to remove Nutella from the cream filling and to use soy milk instead of cow milk.

Here are ingredients for a 10-serving recipe (22-cm diameter baking pan):

 

For the pastry 

3 eggs
150 g sugar
150 g flour 00
20 g cocoa
1/2 sachet vanilla baking powder
100 ml orange juice
40 ml seed oil 

For the filling

1 egg + 1 egg yolk
100 g sugar
50 g flour 00
200 ml milk
1 orange
Nutella

1. Preheat oven to 170°
2. Beat eggs with sugar until stiff for about 15 minutes
3. Sift flour and add it gradually to the egg mixture alternating it with  milk and seed oil
4. Grease and flour the baking pan and pour the mixture. Level it well and bake it for 35 minutes. (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)
5. Leave the cake to cool a bit in the oven with the door open, then out of the oven
6. At this point we can prepare the nutella and orange cream. Put the milk on the stove over medium heat
7. In a bowl place the sugar with the egg yolk and the egg, beat well until stiff
8. Separate the zest of the orange by pulling the fruit across a microplane. Cut the orange in half and juice it. Add both the juice and the orange zest to the egg mixture. Add also sifted flour and mix well
9. Pour everything into the hot milk, and stir with a wooden spoon until thickened
10. Pour the orange cream into a bowl, add 3 tablespoons of Nutella while it is still hot so that Nutella melts and mix well with other ingredients. Let the cream to chill
11. Once Nutella cream is fully cooled, cut the cake in half and stuff it. Garnish the top with some orange peel if you like.

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

There is nothing a jar of Nutella and a spoon can't fix: happy Nutella day!!!