Today is my 26th birthday and I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than by sharing this beautiful and decadent recipe for Nutella cake.
Since chocolate and Nutella are two of my favorite things in the world, this seemed only fitting.
Actually, when I first developed this recipe I topped it with Ferrero Rocher candies and brought it to my dad’s birthday party. Everyone raved about it, but I knew it needed a few more tweaks to get it just right.
Then I thought this would be the absolute perfect cake for Easter for anyone like me who’s a total chocoholic. It became a part of an Easter dinner shoot we did last weekend and I just can’t wait to show you those photos! We scored some beautiful edible flowers and they really took this cake to a whole new level, without requiring any special decorating equipment or skills.
I’m just in love with this cake, so I hope you find a reason to make it for your friends and family soon. If you do, be sure to snap a photo and tag me on Instagram with #handletheheat.
Nutella Cake Recipe Tips
Cake Layers
This chocolate cake recipe isn’t your typical one. It doesn’t involve any beating of room temperature butter and sugar. Instead, we actually boil half of the ingredients together much like you would with a sheet cake. It makes this recipe super simple and practically foolproof. However, you do have to wait for that mixture to cool off so it takes a little extra (hands off) time.
This mixing method, coupled with some of the ingredients (like the brown sugar), create a very rich, moist, and fudgy chocolate cake. The texture reminds me a bit of a brownie. This is perfect for when you need sturdiness to build a tall cake or to use a lot of buttercream!
I love my Fat Daddio’s anodized aluminum cake pans.
Make Ahead:
The cake layers can be made a day ahead of time before you assemble the cake. Cover each entire layer (don’t cut them yet) with foil or plastic wrap and let them sit at a cool room temperature until you’re ready to assemble. Whatever you do, don’t refrigerate unfrosted cake layers. This will dry them out. You can also wrap each layer well in plastic wrap and pop them in freezer bags and freeze for up to 1 month.
The buttercream can also be made, transferred to an airtight container, and refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 1 month. If frozen, defrost in the fridge overnight. Let come to room temperature than re-whip for a couple minutes before using.
Leveling & Cutting Cake Layers
To make this recipe the way you see it in these photos, we simply take each cake layer, level off the top, then cut in half for a total of 4 even layers. I’d highly recommend a cake leveler like this one to make easy, quick, and precise work of leveling and cutting your layers. If you don’t have one, a serrated knife will work – it’s just harder to maintain an even cut.
By the way, if you’d rather keep it a 2 layer cake, feel free to do that! You can also frost the sides of the cake if you’d prefer to as well. I would just increase the buttercream recipe by 1 1/2 and follow my cake assembly and decorating instructions from this video post.
Nutella Buttercream
Yes, there is a lot of butter involved in this recipe. It’s cake! But anytime we have more layers that means more buttercream. Yay! A stand mixer makes easy work of powering through this much buttercream, but if you must use a hand mixer just be sure to use a deep mixing bowl. Do not skip sifting the sugar and cocoa, it’s essential for a smooth frosting!
If you have more questions or frustrations with buttercream, there’s a link to a free buttercream guide here or at the bottom of this post.
Decorating
This cake is ridiculously easy to decorate once you’ve cut your four layers. I simply scooped my buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a large plain decorating tip and piped an even layer of frosting on each piece of cake. Using a plain tip instead of just a spatula creates those clean looking frosting layers. Then we just went to town with edible flowers on top.
Edible flowers are such a fun, beautiful, and easy way to decorate any cake for spring. This look made it perfect for Easter, or even a birthday party. You can find edible flowers during the spring season at your local farmer’s market or some speciality, gourmet, or bakery supply stores.
You could also decorate with seasonal chocolates, like Easter eggs or Valentine’s Day hearts! Ferrero Rocher candy are another fun decoration on top, they even make Easter eggs!
Serving
This cake can be held in a cake carrier or lidded cake stand for up to 8 hours at a cool room temperature. After that, it should be refrigerated. Though I doubt it will last very long! If you plan on serving this at an outdoor party or gathering where it will side outside for a few hours, refrigerate it until it’s chilled beforehand. That way it’ll slowly come up in temperature and hopefully be perfect by the time you want to serve it. No melting cakes here!
Wishing you a very happy birthday!!! This chocolate-nutella cake is definitely a perfect treat for the special occasion.
Hi Tessa,
This is definitely a cake to celebrate with! I also love chocolate and Nutella! Thanks for sharing.
May you have a gigantic helping of it today and may you enjoy it without feeling guilty. I am sure it is worth every single calorie!
Tessa, a inbelated happy birthday to you. I will try to surprise my daughter with the Nutella cake on her birthday which also will be Easter. It sounds and looks delicious. Thank you also for all your other terrific recipes.
Happy Birthday to you! This cake looks yummy and with Nutella and chocolate u can’t go wrong. Lol. Now I’m thinking of all the different possibilities u can make with this cake recipe. Thanks!
Happy birthday to you, and thanks for your recipes, best wishes for you!!.
I don’t think I’ve seen unsweetened chocolate here in South Africa; do you think I could use sweetened chocolate and then just reduce the brown sugar?
Belated Happy Birthday Tessa! Thanks for letting us have “a piece of your cake too”.Looking forward to more of your recipes. Thanks for sharing them.
Tessa, Here’s wishing you a very Happy Birthday with many more happy occasions to come.
I made the cake in a 9×13 pan, and otherwise followed the directions exactly.
We thought the cake was dry and the icing needed some milk to soften.
Thoughts?
Buttercream often needs a little more powdered sugar or a little more milk to create the consistency right for your climate. The cake was certainly not dry any of the 4 times I tested this recipe. Did you measure your ingredients with a scale?
Happy Birthday and what a great cake to celebrate with , this has to be my new favorite xoxo
This looks TO. DIE. FOR!! Mmmmm!
Made this as a triple layer 10 inch round cake and it was great! Everyone loved it, very rich, wasn’t dry at all.
Hi Tessa!
Can you advise on the use of Fat Daddio cake pans vs other brands for this recipe (or any others)?
I recently bought Fat Daddio pans and noticed a note on the sticker that they may require a temperature reduction since they heat quickly.
I know you use these pans! How do you account for this if you are trying a new recipe that is not your own, or do you not find the need for a reduction in the temp with them?
Thank you so much!! 🙂
Wow – what an informative blog site – i need to spend more time here and intend to do so
Can this recipe be used with ten inch pans instead of eight?
Wonderful cake! I chose to divide the batter into three eight inch pans, and reduced the cooking time to 30 mins due to the thinner cakes, instead of the suggested 40 mins in the recipe. I would recommend taking this approach for anyone else who wants to adjust the pans as I did. The cakes were more than cooked through at 30 mins, (I should have checked them at 25 mins I think), so this is just a helpful warning for anyone else doing this adjustment. Thanks again for the recipe!!
Temperature is WAY too high, which is probably why one commenter said there’s was dry. Personally mine didn’t rise at all despite the fact that I have never had this problem with any other recipe, almost certainly for the same reason.
Thanks for sharing. I love this dish! I have done, I am regaled, and your beautiful plate makes me want to regale me again
awesome 🙂
Would it be ok to double the ingredients to make the cake bigger and would i need to bake it in the over for longer?
I don’t think I’ve seen unsweetened chocolate here in South Africa; do you think I could use sweetened chocolate and then just reduce the brown sugar?
Hi, such an awesome cake. Must try it soon. In buttercream frosting, it is icing sugar or normal sugar powered.
This chocolate cake recipe is great, I’ll save it for the weekend.
Hi,
I’m going to give a try, I have one doubt, when you say stir in the eggs, is it with a whisk or spoon?
thanks
Can the Nutella layer cake be made in a bundt pan? And then frosted with buttercream frosting? Thank you
This recipe wasn’t formulated for a bundt pan, I’m not sure if that would turn out well.