You can't judge a book by it's cover. Or can you?

Nutella Cake., originally uploaded by razzieswirl.

As I may have already mentioned I am rarely if ever 100% pleased with anything I bake. However, I think this could be to my advantage. I remember reading an interview in some magazine on some celebrity about how they were never 100% satisfied with their work, but that they believed that this was a good thing because they were always striving for better thus honing their skills and making them better at their craft. If that makes sense. Therefore I feel that my criticism of my food will simply make me strive for better the next time, ultimately resulting in a (hopefully) better product. Plus, when it comes to baking I don't believe in perfection, there is always room for improvement. Most people (Lauren) who eat my food may disagree, most everything I make seems to go over really well. But I generally can find little things I'd like to change about the flavor or texture etc. This doesn't, however, mean I don't enjoy what I make, not in the least. This cake is a prime example.

This cake is extremely good, yet shockingly bad for you. I won't give you the nutrition facts because I don't want it to deter you from trying it, because hey, you could die tomorrow and your ghost may feel really sad it never once had the pleasure of devouring a piece nutella cake. It's a Nigella Lawson recipe from her How To Be A Domestic Goddess cookbook. I changed one thing, instead of a dark chocolate ganache I covered it with a nutella ganache, which I think was much better. Although this cake has a whole jar of Nutella the flavor really doesn't shine through, but the nutella ganache really helps it do just that. I think a dark chocolate ganache would've just further masked the Nutella. I've read this in other blog posts about this cake, so I was prepared to tweak the recipe a bit to try to magnify the Nutella properties.

When taken out of the oven this cake has quite the dome, which will shortly fall (from what I saw of all the pictures floating around on the web, this was supposed to happen). Because of this the cake looks almost like a brownie, or torte, it looks as though it would be very dense, and thick, with little to no crumb. But it's not that at all. This cake has a lot of air and is surprisingly light in your mouth, probably due to the 6 whipped egg whites and no flour. It also has a lot of crumb. So I was put off by the texture, since my mind was expecting this dark, rich, thick cake. It is dark, and rich I guess, but not thick. In all of the posts I read they didn't mention this. And the pictures are quite misleading, even mine. It does not taste how the picture looks. This does not mean that it doesn't taste good, but it is more dry than to be expected. It still has a wonderful chocolate flavor to it, and the toasted nuts give the texture a boost of flavor and crunch. The Nutella ganache is what really put it over the edge for me. It was extremely rich and gooey, and gives it a moistness the cake is lacking. I think I may have bordered on disliking the cake had I not finished it with the Nutella ganache. Instead of posting the entire recipe, you can find it here: http://www.recipezaar.com/47108.

To make a Nutella ganache I simply used about 1/4 cup of Nutella and a few Tablespoons of heavy cream, cooked over low heat until it was the perfect spreading consistency.

I served this cake with a small scoop of Hazelnut Gelato, they made a perfect (yet devilishly bad for you) pair.

Enjoy!