Chocolate and Hazelnut Bundt Cake

This week we held our annual Macmillan Coffee morning. Always one to try something new when I should really play safe, I decided to make a chocolate and hazelnut bundt, inspired by a jar of unused Nutella sitting idly in my cupboard. This cake has a moist, nutty flavoured crumb, chunks of chocolate and a swirl of chocolate spread inside. As if that wasn't enough, I then topped it with chocolate icing and a few nuts. Bingo. Crowd pleaser.

Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 350g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 250ml hazelnut yogurt (Morrison's, Longley Farm and M&S do it)
• 100g milk chocolate chips
• 50g chopped hazelnuts
• 4 tbsp Nutella
• 300g icing sugar
• 100g cocoa powder
• More chopped hazelnuts for scattering

Yes, that is my plate of shame. Yes, I had already eaten some of it. No, I didn't share it.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 C
2. Grease and flour a regular sized bundt tin - 2.4l, 10 cup, 10 inch. 
3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
5. Add the vanilla extract.
6. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, chocolate chips and nuts.
7. Sift in a third of the flour mix followed by half the yogurt. 
8. Repeat this until everything is combined. Don't over mix.
9. Tip in the dry ingredients trapped by the sieve, which are now nicely covered in flour. This helps prevent sinking...
10. Give everything a quick mix on a low speed for about 10 seconds.
11. Pour 3/4 of the mix into the prepared tin. 
12. Give your Nutella a good mix with a spatula - this makes it easier to spread over cake mix. 
13. Now spread over the mix, avoiding the edges.
14. Cover with the remaining mix.
15. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. It should be shrinking from the sides of the tin slightly.
16. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin. 
17. Allow to cool fully.
18. Mix the icing sugar and cocoa powder together with enough water to make a runny icing. Tip over your cake and sprinkle with chopped nuts.

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and basic recipe. Blood, sweat and many tears have gone into getting this right, so you may enjoy a perfect bundt. If you wish to re-blog a recipe from these variations, please credit my blog and link to this original post rather than pasting the recipe on your own page. 

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