Nutty Cherry Chocolate Cake

Someone riddle me this: everybody says they love cake, but everybody also says that they don't like sweet stuff. Alright. That's just not working for me. How can you like cake and not like sweet things? I get it, there can be too much sugar in a cake, but come on! Talk like that just makes my job harder, because every time I bake a birthday cake I sit at home, wrecking my brain on how to make a cake that's still an actual cake without eliciting moans of "It's good, but....". I think with this one, I succeeded. Everybody told me they loved how it was chocolatey, but not overly sweet. Thank god they all didn't know the list of ingredients, because while there's not a lot of sugar in it, there's definitely a lot of fat. But hey, you can't have everything, people. The taste needs to come from somewhere....

Nutty Cherry Chocolate Cake

For the cake:
250g butter, softened
5 eggs
250g white sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
200ml milk
400g hazelnut meal
(a couple of tablespoons of breadcrumbs for the pan)

For the filling:
1 glass (about 700ml including the juice) morello cherries
250g Mascarpone
400g sour cream
25g vanilla sugar (yes, 25g. That's all the sugar it needs.)
300g Nutella (...and that is why 25g of sugar is all this cake needs)
200g whipped cream

For decoration:
about a dozen fresh cherries
50g melted milk chocolate
250g chopped almonds

1. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until well combined. Separate the eggs and add the egg yolks one at a time and beat about a minute after each addition.

2. Mix the flour and the baking powder and add to the butter mixture. Beat until well combined.

3. Lower your mixer setting to a medium speed and slowly add the milk, then the hazelnut meal.

4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold unter the batter.

5. Line the bottom of a 9-inch spring pan with baking paper and generously grease the sides, then sprinkle breadcrumbs over the sides.

6. Bake at 200°C for about 45 to 50 minutes.

7. With an electric mixer, beat the mascarpone, sour cream, vanilla sugar and nutella until well combined.

8. Whip the cream and fold into the mascarpone mix.

9. Once the cake is completely cooled, cut into two layers.

10. Add a thin layer of the mascarpone mix onto the bottom layer.

11. Thoroughly drain the morello cherries (maybe even put them on some paper towels for a bit, so the excess juice gets absorbed) and add a layer on top of the mascarpone.

12. Add more of the mascarpone mix on top, then put the second layer on top.

13. Add a thin layer of mascarpone to the top layer of the cake and put into the fridge to set a little (about an hour or 2).

14. Pan-roast the chopped almonds until they turn golden. Let them cool down completely.

15. Once the cake has set a little, frost the outside of the cake with more of the mascarpone. Gently press the chopped almonds to the outside (leave about 50g of the almonds for the cherries).

16. Melt the milk chocolate, dip the fresh cherries into it and let them set for a minute. Once the chocolate has slightly set, dip the cherries into the leftover chopped almonds and put into the fridge to set.

17. Decorate the top of the cake with the fresh cherries.

Enjoy!
♥ Nicole