This layered chocolate cake is so soft and moist with an intense chocolate flavour and perfectly fudgy crumb. Topped with a creamy Nutella frosting, this cake will definitely become your ultimate Nutella Chocolate Cake.
One of the best celebration cakes I’ve made to date! This Nutella chocolate cake is so fudgy and delicious, I truly have no words.
Three layers of extra decadent, super moist and fudgy chocolate cakes, filled with Nutella sauce and frosted with a dark chocolate Nutella frosting. This is my favourite chocolate cake by far and always my go-to for a crowd.
It starts off with my ever so popular Devils food chocolate cake recipe. This recipe has already been on my blog for a while but I made a slight change by substituting some of the butter with oil. This is to give a more delicate crumb as I was looking for a super moist texture. Straight up Nutella is used in between the layers, then a wonderful creamy, dark chocolate Nutella frosting is used to fill and frost the cake.
It’s a very simple and straight forward recipe using pantry staple ingredients. I’ve included some tips for substitutions just in case but I highly recommend making the cake as written in the recipe card.
Important Ingredients:
- Butter and oil mix. As mentioned above, both butter and oil is used to give a wonderful dense yet soft and delectable crumb. The flavour and texture of butter is undeniable in baking.
- Water. You can totally use coffee in place of the water. This helps deepen the chocolate flavour.
- Brown sugar. Along with the white sugar, brown sugar gives a delicious slightly dense bite to the cake as well as a lovely caramel undertone to the flavour.
- Buttermilk or sour cream. This is key to the cake as it yields the most wonderful stick-to-your-fork moist texture. If you don’t have buttermilk, you can easily make your own “homemade” version. ( See notes in recipe card).
This chocolate cake can be used as a base for many flavours. I’ve used it as my main chocolate cake recipe as it pairs well with any topping or filling. My favourite so far is Nutella, toffee & peanut butter.
Lets talk about this frosting. Instead of just using buttercream with Nutella stirred into it, we make a creamy, dense yet fluffy Nutella cream cheese frosting. The recipe calls for real melted dark chocolate which is perfect as it helps to intensify the chocolate-y flavour.
It’s a very versatile frosting recipe as I’ve also used it to make Biscoff frosting and peanut butter frosting. All you need to do is play around with the type of spread and melted chocolate you use. Feel free to experiment!
To bring this cake together, I like to put some warmed Nutella in between the layers as I’m filling and frosting. This is just to boost the Nutella flavour and give a more decadent bite to the cake. The finished cake is so delicious, it surprises me everytime!
For decoration, I kept it simple with just a frosting and maybe some Ferrero Rocher’s on top while serving. To get this look with the frosting, just run a pallet knife around the edge of the cake while spinning it around on a turn table. Otherwise just use the back of a spoon to make waves for a gorgeous rustic look.
In all honesty, whatever you decide to do, the cake is amazing as is without any fancy decorations or extra fillings and frostings.
I’m so proud of this recipe and super happy to be able to share it. I can’t wait to come up with even more ways to play with this cake and I’m sure whoever tries it will love it too!
More layer cake recipes to love:
- The best peanut butter cake.
- My favourite vanilla cake.
- Red velvet layer cake.
- Devils Food cake.
- The Carrot cake.
Dark Chocolate Nutella Fudge Cake
12
servings30
minutes20
minutes50
minutesThis recipe makes a 3 layered 8 inch cake or 2 layered 9 inch cake.
Keep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (190gms) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (96gms) cocoa powder
1/2 cup (100gms) unsalted butter
1/3 cup (80mls) oil
1 cup (250mls) water (or coffee)
1 cup (200gms) white sugar
1/2 cup (100gms) soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup (125mls) buttermilk or sour cream (yoghurt or homemade ‘soured milk’* can substituted)
- Dark Chocolate Nutella Frosting
3/4 cup (150gms) salted butter
170 gms dark chocolate (I used 50% but you can use as dark as you like)
6 tablespoons (85gms) cream cheese
1 cup + 2 tablespoons (340gms) Nutella
Directions
- Preheat oven to 160C/325F. Grease and flour cake tins.
- In a saucepan with high sides, melt the butter over medium low heat. Add in the cocoa powder, oil and water. Using a whisk and stirring constantly, gently cook the mixture until well combined and smooth. Let the mixture come to a boil, bubble it for about 15 seconds then take off the heat and pour into a large heatproof bowl. Immediately add in both sugars and whisk to combine. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and baking soda and salt.
- To the cooled chocolate mix, add in eggs one at a time whisking only until just combined. Add in vanilla.
- Add in half of the dry mix then the buttermilk/sour cream then the remaining dry mix whisking until just combined. Batter will be very thin.
- Divide batter between cake tins and bake for 20 to 25 minutes until baked through and a toothpick or knife comes out clean. Cool cake in tins for 10 minutes then cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before placing in airtight containers to finish cooling completely.
- For the frosting
- In a microwavable bowl, place chocolate and melt in the microwave, stopping every 20 second to stir. Heat and stir until almost completely melted. The warmth of the melted chocolate will melt whatever bits of chocolate left. Set aside to cool slightly.
- In another medium bowl, combine the butter and cream cheese and beat using an electric mixer until smooth and well blended.
- Add in the Nutella and mix until completely incorporated. Scrape down the bowl.
- Add in the melted chocolate and mix until everything is well combined, scraping the bowl as need.
Notes
- *To make sour milk; measure 1/2 cup of milk into a glass. Remove 1 1/2 teaspoons of the milk and replace with 1 1/2 teaspoons of vinegar. Let it sit for about 5 minutes then use as stated in the recipe.
- Cake recipe by the dutch baker. Frosting adapted from Cleobuttera.
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