Sunken Nutella cake with Baileys Cream

I met with friends for lunch on Saturday, which as usual turned into a slighty longer meet up than planned and wine was consumed. I was in a slight panic at 5pm with 4 friends coming around for dinner and not having prepared a morsel. This is the first time I have made this cake from Olive Magazine and given the rushed circumstances it was very successful and it was very well received. It has a wonderfully squidgy consistency, and will be added to my list of gluten free cakes. My main course was a leg of lamb with lemon and oregano, with potatoes roasting around it, soaking up the butter and dare I say the fat from the lamb. I can't tell you how delicious the potatoes were. I didn't photograph it, but I'll do it again soon and post the recipe. 

I didn't make the Baileys cream do go with the cake, but I imagine that would be a great accompaniment.

Ingredients

Serves 10-12

butter 175g, diced plus extra for greasing
cocoa for dusting
dark chocolate 150g, broken into chunks
Nutella 200g
light muscovado sugar 150g
ground hazelnuts 125g
eggs 6, separated
hazelnuts 25g, chopped

BAILEYS CREAM
double cream 300ml
Baileys 4 tbsp
icing sugar 1 tbsp plus extra for dusting
sea salt ¼ tsp (optional)

Method
Heat the oven to 180ºC. Butter and lightly dust with cocoa a 22-23cm round cake tin with a springform or loose bottom, tipping out the excess. Put the chocolate, Nutella, sugar and butter in a big saucepan and melt slowly over a very low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat to stir in the ground hazelnuts then egg yolks, one at a time.

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then spoon a third of the whites into the chocolate mixture and mix in well to loosen it. Gently fold in the rest of the whites with a big metal spoon or spatula.

Scrape the mixture gently into the tin, scatter with the chopped hazelnuts and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top surface is crisp but doesn’t feel quite set underneath. Cool completely.

To serve, remove the cake from the tin and dust with a little cocoa plus pinches of icing sugar if you like. Put the double cream, Baileys, 1 tbsp icing sugar and salt in a bowl and whisk until thickened and just holding its shape. Cut the cake into thin slivers and serve with spoonfuls of the cream.