Mini Chocolate Cakes with Nutella Cream

Mini chocolate cakes with Nutella Cream

It is a truth universally acknowledged (sorry, but October is the time of my annual rereading of Pride and Prejudice) that everybody loves chocolate cake and these little, individual sized ones are impossible to resist. The cake part is a standard chocolate sponge but the thing that makes these a real winner is the nutella cream sandwiched in the middle. It looks and tastes like a chocolate crème patissière that you've been slaving away over for the best part of an hour but is actually whipped up in less than a minute and is nothing more than nutella mixed with mascarpone. I know it sounds odd but it really works and I speak as someone who is not a great fan of either - I mean, I eat both mascarpone and nutella when the occasion requires but I don't go wild over them (unlike several of my acquaintances).

I made the mini chocolate cakes by baking the mixture in two round 18 cm cake tins, then just cutting out circles with a scone cutter when the cake had cooled, slicing them in half and sandwiching with the cream. You could of course leave it as a normal sized cake, slicing each disc in half and then layering it all up with the nutella cream.

As this month's letter is 'N' in the brilliant Alphabakes challenge by Ros (this month's host) from TheMoreThanOccasionalBaker and Caroline at Caroline Makes, I'm sending this as my entry. I always enjoy seeing what everyone comes up with for this imaginative challenge!



RECIPE

For the cake

Weigh 3 eggs in their shells, then measure out the same weight of:

butter
caster sugar
self raising flour, minus 50g
50g cocoa powder

For the cream - this quantity makes enough for one layer of filling
150g mascarpone
100g nutella
a few drops vanilla extract

Two 18cm cake tins, greased and base lined with baking parchment.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 °C .

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking well between each addition. Fold in the sifted flour and cocoa powder.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tins. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a cake-tester (be it a knitting needle, metal skewer or anything else you might use) comes out clean.

Leave in the tin for about 10 minutes before turning out on to a wire rack to cool.

While the cakes are cooking and cooling, you can make the cream. Just put the mascarpone into a bowl and whisk until smooth. Add the nutella and the vanilla extract and keep whisking until it's all mixed together.

When the cake is cool, use a cookie cutter to cut out rounds. Split them in half and sandwich with the nutella cream.

Before serving, dust with icing sugar.