Nutella Bundt

Have I told you lately that I love Nutella? And did I tell you that I finally bought a bundt pan? Yes my friends, a couple weeks ago, Leigh and I went out to the suburbs and indulged ourselves in the Wilton Tent Sale. Yup, tent sale..meaning saving almost 50% off MSRP...which means I can buy everything that I wanted/needed without making a million and one trips to Michael's so that I can use those 40% off one item coupons at the bottom of your receipt on my "next shopping trip". Haha...

Anyway, I have been saving this recipe in my bookmarks for the day in which I would finally have a bundt pan. Now, though I love Nutella, and would love to bake with it in a bunch of different goodies, I somewhat cringe at the thought of emptying a whole jar of my hazelnut goodness into something that may or may not compliment and enhance the flavor. Plus, when you bake with Nutella, it can get kind of expensive. However, guess what I found the other week? Aldi had their own version of Nutella in the Limited Editions aisle! Granted, I was a bit hesitant ever since my Dollar Store Nutella version but I decided to take a chance and buy one jar. And guess what? It actually tasted good! It actually resembled the "real" thing! I had to go buy more! So this past week I went and bought two more jars. One to eat (since I had already demolished the first jar) and one to bake with.

So back to the Nutella Bundt. I was excited and the pictures at The Food Librarian were tempting. Unlike The Food Librarian, I did not have time to make the yellow cake from scratch so I opted for a box mix. Now, I haven't made a boxed cake in a while so I'm not sure if it was the cake mix or if that's the nature of cakes but the batter seemed pretty runny. And then the Nutella batter I made was super thick. But I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Well, I didn't get that gorgeous marble but it still turned out pretty well. I think next time I will somehow add a bit more liquid into the Nutella mixture to lighten it up a bit. I'm not quite sure what that would be yet. Another egg? Some milk? Heat up the Nutella to make it more runny? Add a bit of batter? I'll have to do something that doesn't interfere with the taste of the chocolate and hazelnut. If you have any ideas, let me know. (Oh hey, as I was rereading the directions to rewrite them for you, I realized that The Food Librarian mixed some batter into her Nutella..whoops. I guess I will have to try it next time)

I also covered the bundt with a simple, makeshift ganache (this was the same night as the Stargazer Pie and Tornado Sirens. Actually the sirens were going off while the bundt was still in the over..it had another 6 minutes to go. I was torn between taking shelter or waiting 'til the cake finished. Lucky for me, by the time we got done closing windows, looking for our phones and keys, etc the cake was ready to come out and the oven could be turned off). A slight difference between my bundt and The Food Librarian is that I have the standard size bundt pan and, from reading, it appears she has a smaller version. Therefore the only change I made was a larger portion of the Nutella Batter.

How did it turn out? Well besides the lack of marbleization, it turned out pretty well. The "chocolate" portions of the cake had that true Nutella flavor. And our friend Nicki took a small bite and dug in for a second piece before she had really finished her first.

Nutella Bundt
posted on The Food Librarian (with some adaptation by myself)

Ingredients
Yellow Cake Mix (either boxed or homemade)- plus whatever ingredients the box calls for
1 cup Nutella
1 egg



Directions

• In a small bowl, mix Nutella and egg together to loosen the Nutella mixture. Take 1/3 of the yellow cake batter and mix it with the Nutella.
  
• Pour the yellow mix in the pan and scooped 1/2 of the Nutella mixture on top of that. 
• Repeat with the remaining batter.
• Take a knife and marbled the two batters together. 
• Bake as directed.