Chocolate cakes with nutella buttercream filling, the ultimate dessert. Rich, chocolaty, heaven. That’s what a proper dessert looks like.

And this is what a proper holiday is all about. I’m currently in Romania visiting family and friends, and enjoying life in the countryside. Such a fresh air and a heart-warming sunshine! My little one seems to love it too. She’s always liked spending time outside, and now everything is new and exciting. Shame we can’t come here more often, but whenever we come, we make the most of it.

I was completely disconnected from the high tech world for 3 long days, l did not even check my phone. And guess what, l feel so rested and fresh. Today l thought l would check my blog though and see how things are going on, and l’ve got sucked into the internet frenzy again. I really had to post this recipe, the cakes are out of this world! I love baking with mum, she’s such an inspiration to me. Mums will be mums!

Making the cakes is a super simple job, but you’ll need to be patient enough and leave them chill in the fridge for quite a bit before having a taste of heaven. The recipe is adapted from a website called Jamila’s cuisine, Jamila is a fantastic Romanian blogger who has a huge success with her yummy recipes. The cakes are called Amandine in Romanian and are a very famous dessert over here. And so delicious! So, after making some changes to the original recipe (including adding nutella to the cream and swapping rum extract for lemon extract) l ended up with these beauties. Needless to say that we loved them. Who wouldn’t!

Ingredients:

For the sponge

150 g plain flour
5 medium eggs
200 g caster sugar
4 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tsp lemon extract

For the syrup:

400 ml water
200 g caster sugar
2 sachets of chocolate capuccino
1 tsp lemon extract

For the cream:

450 g butter
2 tbsp nutella
3 tbsp cocoa powder
150 g icing sugar
1 tsp lemon extract

For the glaze:

300 g dark chocolate
1 cup full-fat milk

To decorate:

200 ml whipped cream

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
To make the sponge, crack the eggs and add them to a bowl.
Add the sugar and beat them until fluffy and the colour becomes a pale yellow.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt, cocoa powder and baking powder and add the dry ingredinents to the egg mixture one tablespoon at a time, mixing well with the spatula.
Once the dry ingredients are fully incorporated, add the lemon extract, mix again lighty.
Butter and flour a reclangle baking tray and pour the mixture in.
Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until risen and firm to touch.
Set aside to cool completely.

To make the cream, make sure that you remove the butter from the fridge at least one hour before, so that it can be really soft.
Place the butter in a large bowl and add the sugar, cocoa powder, nutella and vanilla extract.
Use an electric mixter to beat everything well until smooth and creamy.
To make the syrup, place the water and sugar into a saucepan and bring it to a boil, stirring until the sugar has disolved completely.
Add the chocolate capuccino and the lemon extract, remove from the boil and allow it to cool completely.
To make the glaze, break the chocolate into small pieces, add them to a bowl and pour over the milk.
Set the bowl over a pan of boiling water and allow the chocolate to melt.
Next, cut the sponge into 2 parts and place one part onto the baking tray.
Use a brush to brush the cake with the syrup, we want it quite moist, but not too soggy.
Next, spread the chocolate filling over the entire cake, place the second part of the sponge on top of the cream and moist it too with the capuccino syrup.
Top the cake with the chocolate glaze.
Refrigerate for at least 3 hours before cutting the cake into reclangles.
Decorate with whipped cream.