Chocolatelove - Chocolate Malteser Nutella Cake

February is #chocolatelove month! As you know I LOVE chocolate so I was really excited to co-host this bloghop with lots of other fantastic bloggers (check them out below). Plus it's February which is the month associated with love and chocolate so it was a tough choice deciding what to make. I have countless chocolate recipes but when I saw this in a book that I recently borrowed from my local library I knew that this was the perfect recipe. Coincidentally February 5th is World Nutella Day. I also LOVE nutella and have been known to eat it straight from the jar! (I'm sure I'm not the only one even if you don't want to admit it!)

For all the nutella recipes you can possibly imagine, check out Ms Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso who are the co-hosts of World Nutella Day 

This recipe is really quick and easy to make. It's a mix everything together recipe (you don't even have to get your mixer out for this but it helps). Spread some nutella, fill with crushed maltesers then frost with a chocolate ganache and decorate! I followed the recipe exactly and was really pleased with the results. The cake was light and moist and you can taste the nutella and maltesers. In hindsight, I would add some nutella to the cake batter and frosting next time but perhaps it would be overkill :) 

Please join in on the #chocolatelove fun by linking up any chocolate recipe from the month of February 2012. Don't forget to link back to this post, so that your readers know to come stop by the #chocolatelove event! The twitter hashtag is #chocolatelove :).

 my giant jar of nutella :) 

 spread nutella over the cake 

 add crushed maltesers

 love the ganache dripping down the side... 

 enjoy :) 

Recipe from Cake Magic by Kate Shirazi

For the cake

200g self raising flour

25g cocoa powder

225g caster sugar

225g butter

4 eggs

For the filling

Approx 4-6 tablespoons nutella (I just spread it on, no need to measure!)

135g maltesers, roughly crushed

For the ganache

200g milk chocolate

100ml double or whipping cream

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Grease and line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins
• Mix all the ingredients for the cake together and pour into the tins.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool on a wire rack.
• Roughly crush the maltesers (I put them in a ziplock bag and roughly bashed with a rolling pin).
• Spread the nutella on top of one cake.
• Add the crushed maltesers on top.
• Place other cake on top and press down gently.
• To make the ganache, heat all the ingredients for the ganache in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. 
• When it's melted, remove from the heat and whisk it for a few minutes.
• Pour over the top of the cake.
• Decorate as desired - I used maltesers and star sprinkles here. 

Make sure you visit the following co-hosts for more #chocolatelove: 

A Little Bit of Everything, Astig Vegan, Badger Girl Learns to Cook, Baker Street, Baking and Cooking A Tale of Two Loves, Baking Extravaganza, BigFatBaker, Bon a Croquer, CafeTerraBlog, Cake Duchess, Cakeballs Cookies and More, Cooking with Books, Creative Cooking Corner, Easily Good Eats, Elephant Eats, Georgie Cakes, Hobby and More, Java Cupcake, Kitchen Belleicious, Mike's Baking, Mis Pensamientos, No One Likes Crumbley Cookies, Oh Cake, Preheat the Oven, Rico sin Azucar, Savoring Every Bite, Simply Reem, Smart Food and Fit, Soni's Food for Thought, Sprint 2 the Table, Teaspoon of Spice, That Skinny Chick Can Bake!!!,The Dusty Baker, The Spicy RD, The Wimpy Vegetarian, Vegan Yak Attack!,Vegetarian Mamma, You Made That?