A Valentine cake using the ‘Elegant Heart’ Bundt pan from NordicWare.
Dense, chocolatey and nutty. A decadent cake for sharing on Valentine’s Day. Coated in swaths of Vanilla Chocolate and the hollow filled with copious amounts of fresh fruits. Serve with a glass or two of fizz and he or she will be yours forever.
This recipe is adapted from the Dutch Hazelnut cake in the first Clandestine Cake Club Cook book
400gVanilla Chocolate. The best quality you can buyit will make all the difference to the overall flavour of the cake.
450gFresh Strawberries
200gMix of other berries such as Raspberries and Blackberries.
Instructions
For the Cake
Pre-heat the oven to 180C conventional/160C Fan oven. Grease the inside of the NordicWare ‘Elegant Heart’ Bundt Pan using Cake Release and a very light dusting of flour. Shake off the excess flour to avoid any nasty floury clumps after you turn the Bundt out.
In a small jug, lightly mix together the beaten eggs, Orange Zest and Orange High Strength Flavouring until well combined. This will allow all the orange flavours to infuse and disperse evenly around the cake batter.
Grind the Hazelnuts to resemble fine breadcrumbs. If they are too chunky, your cake will crumble after baking and my not come out of the Bundt Pan in one piece.
Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar for around 10 mins, until light and paler in colour.
Keep the mixer going and gradually add the egg and orange mixture to the butter and sugar, adding a little flour to help prevent curdling.
Add the Nutella and mix until well combined.
In a separate bowl, sieve together the remaining flour and baking powder. Add the ground Hazelnuts and mix until well combined.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and throughly mix until well combined.
Carefully spoon, rather than pour, all the cake batter into the Bundt Pan, ensure the batter fills all the curves.** Normally you would only fill a Bundt pan ¾ full to allow the cake to rise, but this is a dense nutty batter that helps prevent the cake from over flowing.
Bake in the centre of the over for 45 – 55 mins or until baked. Testing the centre of the cake with a skewer until it comes out clean.
Leave in the pan to cool for around 15 mins before turning out onto a large plate or wire rack to cool completely.
Covering and decorating the cake
Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a heat proof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
Take off the heat and leave to cool for a few moments.
Take two or three Strawberries and dip them in the chocolate. Place on baking parchment to set.
Pour the remaining chocolate into a disposable piping bag. When you are ready to cover the cake, snip the tip of the piping bag and carefully pipe the chocolate all over the cake. Using this method is cleaner and easier, resulting is less waste and mess.
Fill the hollow of the Bundt with the remaining strawberries and other berries. Finally finishing with the strawberries you covered earlier in chocolate.
This cake will keep for several days, if kept covered or in an airtight tin – but do remove the fruit first or they could go mouldy. Or keep the whole cake, including the fruit, in the fridge.
Notes
This recipe is specifically designed for the NordicWare ‘Elegant Heart’ Bundt Pan. If you use other types of cake tins, you will need to adjust the baking times.