Caroline's blueberry nutella cake

Our house smells divine just now. It's a shame this isn't a smell-a-blog. We are having a gloriously lazy morning which has consisted of a lie-in, breakfast under the duvet on the sofa, an episode of Battlestar Galactica under said duvet (Starbuck a man in the original??? I don't think so), some knitting - and a little cake baking. Hence the magnificent smell.

Mmmnn, gooey nutella

Despite recent trends on this blog we do actually eat savoury food round here too, but this is a cake to take to Kiwi Family later today, sort of in honour of Kiwi Sis's birthday a few weeks ago, which is sort of her 30th because we all missed her real 30th last year when they were still in New Zealand. For once I had no dithering at all over what to make because I was itching for an excuse to make my new friend Caroline's blueberry nutella cake. She made it for one of our craft groups and it was just the best cake ever. My commitment to this cake only increased when what should Kiwi Sis give me as part of a lovely Xmas hamper, but some home-made blueberry jam? Serendipity spoke.


So far the cakes are made and cooling, but I plan to update this with photos before we leave to head up to Kiwi Family. I made the mixture in my food processor for the first time ever as the butter hadn't softened as much as I'd hoped and I needed some more welly. It was quite fun. I also added a splash of kettle-hot water as my cocoa mix was a bit claggy, and this works well in one of our family chocolate cakes. And I had to grease but not line the tins because I was out of baking paper, so we will have to see how amenable the cake is to being turned out. The mixture was a bit thicker than I expected as Caroline's cake was really moist (that word again!), but I decided to go with it and tinker next time.


Update: the cake was a winner! I sandwiched it together with Kiwi Sis's jam, and then spread a whole (small) pot of nutella over the top and sides. The Munchkin and Munchkinette recognised my cake tin as soon as we arrived (the Munchkin actually asked in advance what I'd be bringing, but had already been excited that we were coming to stay, so I'm sure this wasn't the only reason he was looking forward to seeing us!), and were pretty impressed with the sight of so much chocolate. I don't think the cake was quite as moist as Caroline's, but I don't think anything with that much chocolate spread on it can ever be a hardship to eat. I haven't tried making any of the vegan versions of nutella (there's one in V-con, and another here, for example), but that plus vegan marge and an egg replacer could make for an excellent alternative version...
Cai's blueberry nutella cake recipe is here