Chocolate Nutella cake… with stawberries

It was a dear friend’s housewarming, so what could I take? A cake! I thought a chocolate cake might be right for a party and I decided to make it more interesting by adding Nutella to the mixture and to the filling.

Chocolate Nutella cake

• 12 oz self-raising flour
• 3 oz cocoa
• 3 heaped tsp baking powder
• 12 oz dark sticky muscovado sugar
• 12 oz butter or margarine
• 4 heaped tablespoons Nutella plus a bit extra
• 5 very large eggs
• strawberries
• dark chocolate buttons
• icing sugar to decorate
• more butter/margarine and more Nutella

1. cream the sugar and butter – on this occasion because the sugar is so thick and sticky I did it in a blender rather than using a whisk and I ran it until it was really, really light and fluffy
2. mix cocoa, flour, baking powder together
3. put mixture into a mixing bowl if you used a blender, then add flour mix and eggs alternately
4. each time you’ add flour and egg and mixed, add a tbsp Nutella and whisk in before adding the next flour and egg
5. I used a fluted ring mould which was big enough for all the mixture (it did rise over the top but I trilled that off)
6. gas mark 4, 180º C, 350º F for about 40 mins, cover the top if it begins to get to brown, but as you’re going to level it off it’s not crucial
7. when cooked, turn out onto a cooling rack
8. wen cool trim the top which becomes the bottom
9. make a butter cream with extra butter and Nutella – some recipes use icing sugar as well but I thought it might be a bit too sweet, however the butter/Nutella mix did seem a bit soft so I might try that next time
10. slice in two – try to get it across the middle, mine was a bit uneven, but it didn’t really matter!
11. spread with butter/Nutella mix
12. fill with un-hulled strawberries and dark chocolate buttons
13. dust with icing sugar