It's my boyfriend's 24th birthday! He's a big fan of chocolate so I decided to make him a Nutella chocolate cake with his picture made of chocolate on the top. When I posted it yesterday some of you ask me to post a step-by-step tutorial so here it is :)
How to make the soft and fluffy chocolate cake:
- 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup Nutella
- half box of strawberries
- 1 cup whole milk
Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour the pan. Mince & boil strawberries. In a large bowl whisk to combine flour, baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer cream sugar into the butter until light in color and fluffy in texture, about three minutes. Add one egg at a time, then the Nutella. Pour in half the dry ingredient mixture, half the milk, the rest of the dry ingredients and the rest of the milk; mix until just combined. Add minced strawberries, mix well. Spread the batter into a prepared pan and bake for approximately 30-45 minutes. When cake is cooled, spread a jar of Nutella & buttercream on top, and put it in the refrigerator.
How to make the chocolate face:
First, print a real size stencil of what you're going to make on a paper. I made it black & white with shadow on it so I divide the picture into 3 colors. You can also make it in different colors if you're planning to use white chocolate and food colorings, but this time I prefer to use dark chocolate... because it's yummier. :P Use baking parchment paper on your stencil, you might want to staple it to make the tracing process easier.
Melting chocolate tips: Do not boil the chocolate because it will get too runny when you spread it to the baking paper, and it's important to keep the chocolate temperature stable (not getting too cool it will harden and you will not be able to get smooth chocolate texture later). Insert chopped chocolate into the triangle plastic bags you'll be using for tracing, and put it into a bowl of warm-hot water until it melts into some kind of Nutella or chocolate spread texture. :)
Make sure to have all the texts and picture mirrored before you print it. Spread the dark chocolate paste on the tracing paper first. Be tricky for tiny details, don't do it when the chocolate paste is still too fluid. After the dark color done, put it in the refrigerator while you're preparing the next color.
For the shadow, I mixed dark & white chocolate in a triangle plastic bag & melt it in warm water until I get the color I desired. Trace the shadow part, and put it in refrigerator for another 5 minutes.
Melt the white chocolate in triangle plastic bag using warm water, be careful to keep it not too hot so it won't ruin the previous chocolate tracing. Block the whole picture (I use the white chocolate for skin & background), and put it in refrigerator until it's firm. Peel off the baking paper and handle the chocolate plate carefully. Good luck! And again, happy birthday, darling :)
