It seems like every year someone asks me who will make my birthday cake. And I guess that makes sense, usually people enjoy letting other people do some of the work for their birthday (or maybe they just enjoy the cake?). But for me, more than half the fun comes from planning and making my cake.
Through out the year I keep mental notes of cakes and flavors that look or sound interesting and then a few weeks before my birthday I started planning what I actually want to do. Last year, I had ice cream on the brain. This year, I had gelato on the brain.
Back in San Diego there is a gelato shop that Jesse and I love. The location is awesome, right near La Jolla cove, so we would typically treat our selves after a nice evening of watching the waves and seals. The first time we went I got a scoop of salted caramel and scoop of chocolate hazelnut and I was immediately hooked. It became my standard order. Makes me drool just thinking about it! Like a match made in heaven!
With that in mind, I created the concept for this years cake. I.am.so.excited about how it turned out. The frosting is an absolute dream. Smooth and creamy with the perfect hint of hazelnut. The salty caramel is the perfect match. In fact, I’d like to go out on a limb and say that chocolate hazelnut and salted caramel is the new peanut butter and jelly. Finally, when we threw our party last month one of our guests brought us Ferrero Rocher candies and they were the perfect garnish. Happy Birthday to me!
Cake
Ingredients
Butter, for greasing the pans
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans with butter, flour, and parchment paper. (Grease pans with butter. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom of each pan. Butter the parchment paper then add about a tablespoon of flour to each pan, shake and tap until it’s evenly distributed)
In a glass measuring cup stir together the buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla. Set aside.
Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of a standing mixer (fitted with the paddle attachment). With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the buttermilk mixture to the dry ingredients, mix until evenly combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and, with the mixer on low, add the hot coffee. Mix just until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl one more time.
Evenly distribute the batter between the two cakes pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove the cakes from the oven and set on a wire rack. Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then flip out onto the wire racks.
as posted here, original source Ina Garten
Salted Caramel
Ingredients
1 cup white sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted good quality butter (I sprung for the President!)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp sea salt, divided
Directions
Spread the sugar in a thin layer in a thick bottomed pan over medium heat. Leave undisturbed until the sugar around the edges starts to melt. Give the pan a swirl to redistribute the sugar. Repeat a few times. When most of the sugar has melted, you can give it a stir with a wooden spoon. When all of the sugar has melted and it is a dark golden amber color, remove from the heat.
When the melted sugar is off the heat, add the butter and stir. It will foam up. Stir until melted. Once the butter has melted entirely, pour in the cream and whisk/stir until you have a smooth sauce. Stir in half the salt then allow to cool completely. Once cool, stir in the other half of the salt.
as posted here, original source Purple Foodie
Nutella Cloud Frosting*
Ingredients
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, sifted
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups premium bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
2/3 cup Nutella
2 tablespoon milk
pinch of salt
*If you decide not to torte your cake (cut the layers in half) you can use half of this recipe
Directions
In a medium bowl, beat together the butter and sifted confectioners sugar for about 1 minute. Add the vanilla, and beat on low for another 30 seconds. Add the melted and slightly cooled chocolate and beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until smooth. Add the Nutella, milk, and a pinch of salt, and beat on medium-high speed for another minute.
Source: Sweetapolita
To assemble the cake
Supplies
Cake
Salted Caramel Sauce
Nutella Cloud Frosting
6-8 Ferrero Rocher candies, cut in half
Extra sea salt for sprinkling, optional
Cardboard cake round
Offset Spatula
Cake turntable
Directions
Start by cutting the two cake layers in half. Place one half of one cake on the cardboard cake round. Drizzle about 1/3 of a cup of caramel sauce over the entire surface, use a spatula to evenly distribute. Top with a good heaping spoonful of frosting and spread to the edges. Repeat with the next 2 layers.
Place the 4th and final cake layer. Frost the top and sides and with the remainder of the frosting. Drizzle caramel sauce about the edge, all around the top of the cake (I started about 2 inches from the edge and poured the caramel while turning the turn table, working my way to the edge). The sauce should start to work it’s way over the edge and drip down the sides, but if it doesn’t you can use the back of a spoon or a spatula to give it a nudge. Finally, sprinkle the caramel with a little bit of sea salt and garnish with Ferrero Rocher halves.
Sunny Side Up Original idea
Gorgeous cake! I love the caramel drizzling down the sides.
LOVE this cake (and the photos!)! HB once more, sweetie! 😉
Jess, happy birthday! The photos of this are just stunning. Such a gorgeous cake and delicious sounding, too!!! Wish I was there to celebrate with you and get a big bite of it. 😉
My niece's name is Hazel and she asked for hazelnut cake for her upcoming birthday. I'll have to send this to my sister, it looks amazing!See you soon I hope, we'll be back on Sunday.
Gorgeous Cake!! Just found your blog and I am so glad I did. 🙂 I live in SD and was super excited to see a blogger who lived in the same area…that is until I read back a bit on your blog. LOL! Can't wait to see all your yummy food, instagram pics, and fun adventures abroad.
Happy Birthday!I cannot say no to an amazing cake like this…It has Nutella, oh my! I have to really try this. Never mind if the next birthday celebration will still be in a couple of weeks. I am making this soonest =)Anyhoo, we have just recently launched a food photo submission site, http://www.yumgoggle.com/gallery/ that allows you to showcase all your great work and share it with all of our visitors. Your phenomenal photos have caught our attention. We’d be proud to have your work as part of our growing collection to continue to have a larger reach and further inspire all fellow food lovers out there! (sorry for the blatant shameless plug)!
That looks absolutely delicious. You will have to recreate it when we come to visit!
Love,
Mom
This looks amazing! I love the Nutella and salted caramel flavours 🙂 and your frosting is perfect! Happy birthday!!
This cake is beyond gorgeous, and sounds amazing. Some of my very favorite flavors all combined into one. Yum.
I love that you've taken inspiration from gelato flavours that you enjoyed. A great flavor combination will usually work for other types of foods whether it be ice-cream, cake, cookies, macarons, puddings, candy etc etc etc. Well done!
If you enjoy making your own birthday cake and this is the result, I think you should celebrate monthly.
Gorgeous! I might have to make this soon 🙂
Just found your blog via FoodGawker, and I LOVE it! Your photography is great and everything I’ve seen looks mouthwatering. YUM!
look awesome..thanks..
I have a question about the measurement of the chocolate in the frosting. Did you use 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips and then melted them, or is it 1.5 cups of melted chocolate?
I am trying to make this frosting today, and am getting stuck.
I used 1 1/2 cups of chopped, un-melted chocolate. Good luck!
I accidentally bought heavy whipped cream instead of just heavy cream,will it make a difference if I just use the heavy cream? Or is there a substitute?
Sorry for the delay in my response. Heavy cream and heavy whipping cream can pretty much be used interchangeably. Hope it worked for you!
Hi,
Wondering if you would substitue the coffee for anything? Not a coffee cake lover..
Sorry I am way late to responding, as you can tell I’ve been a terrible blogger lately!
The cake really does not taste like coffee. It just enhances the chocolate flavor. My husband does not like coffee at all and he didn’t even notice I had used coffee.
OMG this is amazing. I only make special cakes about twice a year, and I always look for a variation of hazelnut for my adult daughter’s birthday. I found you on Pinterest and after spending an afternoon comparing recipes and ideas, I came back to yours, and I am SOOOO glad that I did.
I used a set of Wilton 6-inch pans (“Easy Layers,” 5 in a box) and Baker’s Joy spray — filled the pans and had about a half cup of batter leftover.
The cake was interesting, adding the hot coffee seemed a curious move, but it worked! The cakes came out perfectly with a little nudge from my knife, the bottoms of each were nice and spongy, no cracks, no problems.
The caramel was so much fun to learn, I’d never tried it before. I ruined the first batch by not melting it long enough — it had all clumped up and I removed it from the heat too soon, so it could not mix with the butter. [Note to files: if this happens and you can’t get the gooey mess off your pan, fill the pan with water and heat on stove, the sugar will eventually dissolve for you.]
The second batch was perfect, I was a little leery because the syrup looked quite dark, but it came out perfect. Really fun, as I said above!
The frosting was a lovely consistency to spread, nice and fluffy and tasty.
I finished my cake in the “semi-naked style,” I’ll post it on Pinterest — giving YOU the credit– after our birthday celebration. But THANK YOU! Now I have to decide what to do with all the leftover frosting (my cake was 5 layers, but very small layers.)
(Sorry I wrote so much. But coffee and chocolate and Nutella. Yeah.)