In the Kitchen Lab with the Picky Eater

The Picky Eater was telling me that I really could stop experimenting with desserts-  I have a bunch of great ones that always turn out splendidly, and I should just stick with those. (These comments were the result of a couple of less than stellar Thanksgiving dessert attempts.)

She, on the other hand, I was informed, was still searching for her dessert repertoire, and the following recipe is a recent successful experiment:

Smooth & creamy thanks to Cuisinart!

Homemade Nutella
(Adapted from The Kitchn and, well, logic)
Most recipes don’t have you put any actual chocolate in, I thought I’d add some.  This isn’t terribly sweet (especially compared to the commercial stuff), so add more sugar if you want.
Makes ~1 cup, or the perfect amount to swirl in a cake

1 ½ cups raw almonds
¼ cup couverture disks, 70% (or half a dark chocolate bar you’ve got laying around)
¼ cup cocoa powder
½ cup powdered sugar
¼ tsp salt
Sunflower oil, as needed (almond, hazelnut, or peanut oils would be lovely, but not necessary)

Toast the almonds in a skillet until dark and fragrant.  Place in the food processor along with the chocolate and process until paste-like.  Add the cocoa powder, sugar, and salt, and blend some more.  Dribble in oil until a spreadable consistency.

Refrigerate for up to 1 week, but good luck with that.  Or, swirl into the following cake:

Vanilla-Almond Bundt with Homemade Nutella

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus extra for the pan
1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for the pan
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 large eggs
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract (not necessary, but nice)
¾ cup buttermilk*

Preheat the oven to 350º.  Butter and flour a 10-cup capacity bundt pan thoroughly—I used a springform style for easier release and the cake still stuck some.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, approx. 3 to 5 minutes.  With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition.  Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts.

Combined the flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl, and add 1/3 to batter, beating until just combined, then half the buttermilk, 1/3 flour, remaining buttermilk, and remaining flour.   Scrape down occasionally and don’t mix any more than you have to—I like to do the last flour addition by hand.

Place half the batter in the pan, smooth, and make a small channel.  Add one batch homemade nutella or about one cup of store-bought nutella and cover with the remaining batter.  Swirl thoroughly (I wished I’d done more, I ended up with a cake with nutella filling instead of a swirl) and smooth the top of the cake.  Bake for 55-60 minutes, turning halfway through.  The cake is done as soon as a tester comes out clean of batter.

Let sit for 10-15 minutes to cool, and then turn out of the pan.

*If you haven’t got buttermilk, either add a couple spoonfuls of plain yogurt to enough milk to make buttermilk consistency (what I did) or add 1 tsp lemon juice to a cup of milk.  We’re more likely to have yogurt (and it’s actually more like cultured buttermilk), so I used 1 ½ Tb greek yogurt in enough milk to make ¾ cup, and it worked brilliantly

This cake bakes up beautifully, with a nice contrast between the almost bittersweet nutella and the cake. Unfortunately we didn't get an interior shot.

Serve to a large party of teenage engineers and watch it disappear.