Our contributor, Tessa Huff, is sharing a chocolate hazelnut cake recipe. Banana cake with chocolate ganache filling and chocolate hazelnut buttercream.
It’s the peak of summer, and I am sure we are all starting to feel the heat. You are most likely reaching for all your favorite frozen treats every afternoon. One of my favorites is a frozen chocolate-dipped banana. Yumm! I’ve been seeing recipes for bite-sized varieties pop up on several of the desserts blogs lately, so I was inspired to make you all a cake version.
So this cake might not actually be frozen or super cool and refreshing, but it is extremely flavorful. And fairly sinful. So if you can’t beat the heat, then you might as well indulge. If you are courageous enough to brave turning on the oven, then you deserve a slice of this rich and extremely moist cake.
Like the frozen treat, layers of banana cake are paired with dark chocolate. To elevated this cake, I created a chocolate-hazelnut buttercream. The buttercream was used in the filling as well as frosting. Might as well send a spoonful straight to your mouth while you are at, it’s that good. I’ve garnished the cake with chopped, toasted hazelnuts for added texture and extra crunch. Serve with salted caramel sauce to tie it all together.
BANANA CHOCO HAZELNUT CAKE
a recipe by Tessa Huff
For the Banana Cake:
3 ripe bananas
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt or sour cream
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and lightly flour two 6″ round pans.
- Mash ripe bananas in a small bowl with a fork and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt until well combined. Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat on med-high until pale and fluffy (2-3 minutes).
- With the mixer on low, add eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Add vanilla extract.
- Stop the mixer. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- With the mixer on low, add in half of the dry ingredients.
- Mix in the yogurt or sour cream.
- Add in the remaining dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Fold in the mashed bananas until combined.
- Pour batter into prepared pans and bake until golden – about 22-25 minutes for the recommended size.
- Place cakes on wire rack to cool for 10 minutes then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.
For the Chocolate Ganache:
8 ounces chocolate – about 65% cacao
6 ounces heavy cream
Chop the chocolate and place in a heat-safe bowl. Heat the cream over medium-low until it starts to simmer. Be careful not the burn the cream! Once it starts to come to a low simmer, pour over the chopped chocolate. Let sit 30 seconds before whisking together until smooth. Let cool before use.
For the Nutella Buttercream:
3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, cubed and softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup chocolate hazelnut spread
- Place egg whites and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Whisk until combined.
- Fill a medium saucepan with a few inches of water and place over medium heat. Place the mixing bowl on top of the saucepan to cream a double-boiler.
- Whisking constantly, heat the egg mixture until it registers 160 degrees on a candy thermometer. Carefully transfer the bowl onto the stand mixer.
- Using the whisk attachment, beat the egg white mixture on high speed for 8 to 10 minutes until the bowl is no longer warm to the touch and the meringue is fluffy, glossy and holds a stiff peak.
- Swap out the whisk attachment for the paddle.
- With the mixer on low, slowly add cubed butter and mix until incorporated.
- Add vanilla and chocolate hazelnut spread. Whip on medium-high until silky and smooth, about 3 to 5 minutes.
NOTE: The buttercream may look like curdled or runny after adding the butter. Keep mixing until it is completely smooth.
For the Assembly:
salted caramel sauce of choice
toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
- Slice cooled banana cakes in half, horizontally, to create four layers of cake.
- Spread a layer of ganache on top of the bottom layer of cake.
- Add a layer of buttercream on top of the ganache.
- Place the second layer of cake on top of the buttercream and repeat.
- Ice with the remaining buttercream.
- Garnish with chopped, toasted hazelnuts – if desired.
- Serve with salted caramel sauce!
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:
Chocolate Turtle Cake
London Fog Cake
Banana Split Cake
S’mores Cake
Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cake
This looks amazing! Love the flavor combo. Pinned!
Wow…this looks delicious. Thanks for sharing!!!
Love this recipe combo!!
This cake looks amazing!
I made a gluten-free and dairy-free version of this cake and it turned out wonderfully! The flavor combination was wonderful, I got great feedback on it, and my uncle even ate it for breakfast the next day 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!
How did you make it dairy free? How did you substitute the yogurt? (I have to do the same thing this weekend)
This looks absolutely amazing and divine! Pinning!
hi, is there supposed to be some hazelnuts in the sponge or something? i can only see some hazelnuts on the outside of the cake for the whole recipe? Looks great!
There is chocolate hazelnut spread in the frosting. Yum!
I made this cake, following the recipe exactly. To prepare my cake pans, I sprayed them with Pam Baking Spray with flour in it, then lined the bottoms of the pans with a circle of baking parchment and sprayed it. My cakes fell right out of the pans, no issue. The cakes took much longer to bake than the recipe said; I just kept checking until a toothpick came out of the cake clean. The top edges became hard and crusty when cool, so I just used a sharp steak knife to trim them off, no sweat.This recipe made way more ganache than you need to apply a “smear” to each layer, I would recommend cutting it down to 2/3 or even 1/2, unless you want a ton left over. The Nutella frosting came out perfect, my husband and I were licking the bowl! Assembled, my cake looked almost just like the recipe’s picture, and my family enjoyed it very much; rich, moist, dense, delicious! If you refrigerate it, as I did, make sure you leave it out for an hour before serving. Thank you for a great recipe, Tessa Huff!
I’ve tried to make this cake twice, both times the buttercream icing has turned out super runny and I don’t know why or how to fix it. Any thoughts/suggestions?
This buttercream is meringue based, meaning you make a meringue first and then add the butter and flavorings.
You should have nice peaks after beating the egg and sugar mixture. Then it will ‘break’ and look runny or curdled when you add in the butter. Just keep mixing until it comes back together into a silky smooth texture. This can take 10 minutes sometimes!
If it is still too runny, it can be caused by the mixture being too hot. Simply refrigerate it for a few minutes to cool it off (but don’t let it get cold and set up into a solid). Then mix it again.
Hope this helps!
The recipe instructions are not well written. The sponge I made following these instructions very carefully were no where near as thick as shown in the image. For the amount of chocolate you would spread on the layers, which is very little, there is way too much chocolate mixture left over – bit of a waste. As for the buttercream, very difficult to use as an icing, I believe something to set the mixture so it can be used as an icing is a must, especially if making/serving on a warm day.I believe the image presented of the cake is a bit deceiving to be honest. Although the flavour combinations go nicely, I would make some alterations to the recipe to make it more practical. Unless you are a very experienced baker – my suggestion is to think about this cake carefully before making it.
I made this cake today for my10 year old daughter’s birthday! It was fantastic!!!
Thank you for a lovely free recipe!
Hi Tessa,
I follow your pinterest as well as your Instagram account and adore your cakes as well as all the photos.
This one looks amazing too. oNE Question: How do you do the swirl pattern with the frosting on top of the cake? It looks so good but I can never find any tutorial on this type of technique. If you could describe it, I would appreciate it a lot.
Thanks.
Secil
The cakes are beautiful. However, I am more interested in the antique forks you photo the cakes with, especially the one with the banana choco hazelnut cake.. Do you know the maker and style of this fork. I am sure it is no longer available unless I get lucky in an antique store.
That is the most amazing looking and sounding cake! Thank you for sharing!
What a gorgeous cake!!
Kari
http://www.sweetteasweetie.com
This looks amazing!! Found this from Cupcakes & Cashmere’s post and I will definitely have to try this recipe out.
xox
I made this cake and I fell in love with it. It’s amazing, it’s incredibly rich in flavors and it tastes like Heaven! Thank you so much for the recipe <3
unusually amazing and teasingly mouthwatering!
Thanks for the recipe! I made the cake and paired it with white chocolate cream cheese Italian meringue buttercream and salted caramel. SOOOOO good!! I will try the chocolate and hazelnut soon.
I would suggest doubling this recipe for the cake or using a smaller pan. The layers were super thin and I wished I had double the recipe because they are waaaay too thing to cut in half.
This recipe calls for 6″ round pans, which are slightly smaller.
Where is the caramel sauce recipe?
Since this recipe already involves several steps, we recommend using a store bought caramel sauce.
I love everything about this! The flavor combinations are amazing and it looks so pretty! Love!
I only have two 8 inch cake pans and one 9 inch springform pan… any help converting?
Generally speaking, you can multiply by 1.5 or 2 to bake this as an 8″ round.
I made this on the weekend, it turned out perfectly! Cake rose as expected and did not fall, however it did take quite a bit longer to bake. I only made half of the ganche, I find all recipes for this make way more than needed. The frosting was delish! Will definitely make again! Thank you for Sharing Tessa! 🙂
Have to say I’m disappointed in the directions. Especially for the buttercream, it isnt mentioned anyway to whisk until soft peaks. So now mine is super runny and I don’t think putting it in the fridge will help. Cake tastes nice though, took about an hour. I also had to double the recipe and used 20cm tins instead of 15
We’ve updated the recipe to make things more clear. Thanks for the feedback.
look so cute and amazingly. actually i love this cake.
I am going to make this cake, wondered how long it takes!?
There are several steps, between the cake, ganache, frosting and assembly. So it’s hard to give a total time investment. If needed, you can always break up the steps over a day or two.
I am an experienced baker and I would not recommend this cake to amateur bakers. The flavor and texture are great, especially the frosting, however the consistency of the ganache and frosting don’t lend themselves well to the finished goal of assembly. I ended up refrigerating prior to the final frosting. Also, I thought considering the large amount of butter in the frosting, added to the high fat Nutella, it could be wise to cut the amount of butter. I did – only used one stick of butter instead of three. Quite enough we thought! Delicious!!!
What size is the cake tray?
This cake was baked in 6″ round cake pans.
The updated instructions have made a world of difference! I have made this cake twice before and while it always tasted wonderful, the cakes didn’t not rise and frosting was runny! May cakes today look amazing! I haven’t made the frosting yet but I’m hopeful it will turn out right to! Thanks for revising and listening to your commenters! Best cake ever!
Thanks for the feedback Krista! Hope the frosting was a success as well. Enjoy!
Hi there,
Do you have a cup amount for the bananas? 3 bananas is rather vague and I am thinking the ones I had on hand were maybe too big? Everything looked good right up to the end when the cakes sunk. They seem rather dense so I’m guessing perhaps too much banana. I bake on a regular basis and don’t,t experience too many flops which is what I consider these to be. Planned on taking the cake to a family gathering but now have to make smehin else.
Thanks!
I apologize Kelly, we do not have a specific cup measurement for the bananas. But if yours were especially large, perhaps that is the culprit. Too much moisture can cause a cake to sink. Other possibilities include high humidity, under-baking, inaccurate oven temp, etc. Just some thoughts to help you trouble shoot for next time!
We’ll keep your feedback in mind for future recipes and updates!
Does this keep well if made a couple days early??
It should keep fine for a day or two in the refrigerator.
When doing the buttercream icing, are we using granulated sugar or icing sugar?
This style of buttercream uses regular, granulated sugar. Not powdered sugar. You start by making a meringue (egg whites and regular sugar whipped together) and then blend in the butter to create creamy emulsion.
Thanks, so glad I read this before I started!
Looks amazing well done 💜
For how long shall I heat the egg mixture since i don’t have a candy thermometer? And shall I beat egg whites and sugar together or add sugar a little later?
A candy thermometer is really the only way to be certain that the egg mixture has reached 160 degrees, which is the temperature needed to kill any bacteria that may be present in the egg whites.
Most grocery stores, Target, Walmart, etc will have an inexpensive candy thermometer for around $4 to $5. Or you can snag a good one on Amazon.
This cake looks so good. I want to make it for my family but one of them is allergic to bananas. What can I use instead of bananas ? Is the banana necessary, in order for the cake not to sink ?
Thanks
I’m sorry Noemie, we have not tested this recipe without banana.
Are you using regular sugar for the buttercream or powdered sugar??
This style of buttercream uses regular, granulated sugar. Not powdered sugar. You start by making a meringue (egg whites and regular sugar whipped together) and then blend in the butter to create creamy emulsion.
This cake isn’t amazing I doubled the recipe and used 8.5” pans to cater for a group. It was a hit!
I made this cake for my son’s birthday and though it turned out okay, there were definitely issues. I used 8” cake pans, my fault for not paying attention to the 6” pan recommendation but I wouldn’t have gone out and purchased them anyway, but I would have doubled the cake recipe so that the layers were thicker. I do agree with previous comments about the bananas, it would help to know how much in cup size vs just 3 bananas because the size can vary a lot! Mine were obviously too big because although my cake was cooked “toothpick clean” it was very dense. On the oh most awesome side, the icing was PERFECT! First time making a meringue and it was perfect!!! (I even had to put the meringue in the fridge overnight because I didn’t have enough butter and I was able to reheat it on double boiler to breakdown the sugar and it held perfectly! The icing was never runny. I did cut the recipe for the chocolate in half based on other reviews and it was also awesome! I absolutely will make this again because although there were minor issues, the flavor/taste was awesome!!