My favorite candies are Ferrero Rocher, and hubby gets me some every Valentine’s Day. I used to happily eat them over the next few days, but I decided to use them in a recipe this year. I did that in 2022 with the Ferrero Rocher Nutella Tart, and OMG was it delish! I got lazy last year, but this year I’m giving this Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake a go. Cakes are probably the most difficult baked dessert recipe for me. This one looks like a lot, but I’m determined to recreate it in my kitchen. Plus the Ferrero Rocher candies don’t go on until the end, so I won’t waste them if it’s a disaster. Spoiler: it wasn’t!
As spectacular as it may look, this Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake isn’t nearly as complicated to make as you may imagine… but it certainly won’t fail to impress, and please, the chocolate lovers in your life!
The Ingredients
This Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake was a big project, so it was no surprise that the ingredient list was long. I did my usual pre-shopping check and found I had a few. Unsweetened cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, instant coffee, and all-purpose flour were all in my pantry. My flour wasn’t unbleached, but it didn’t seem to make a difference in the cake.
That left me with a good amount of things to buy and I was able to get them all at my regular grocery store. Most are pretty straightforward as far as the amounts, but a few of the measurements were a little different.
For example, most recipes I have made call for tablespoons of sticks of butter while this one called for over a pound of butter. The buttercream alone used five sticks plus two tablespoons of butter, and one package of butter is four sticks or one pound.
I wasn’t entirely sure what size of Nutella jar to buy for this recipe. I opted for the largest jar, 35.3 ounces/2.2 pounds/1 kilogram, and used almost all of it.
The buttercream needs 1.1 pounds of sugar, so I chose a four-pound bag. There were some leftovers even after having to redo the buttercream, but I used most of it.
The Process
Making this Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake was a lot! The blog post advised making it over two days, and that’s what I tried to do. It ended up being over three days when the buttercream didn’t turn out as planned…
Making the Cakes
This was most definitely the easiest part of the whole process and similar to cakes I’ve made before. The basics were to mix the wet ingredients, mix the dry ingredients, combine the two, and bake in greased and floured cake pans until a toothpick comes out clean.
But everything I make is a learning experience. Previous baking recipes have taught me to weigh my ingredients for the greatest accuracy. This recipe also taught me to weigh my batter for even distribution. It’s a simple step that ensures accuracy and perfectly even-sized cakes.
Tip: Weigh your ingredients with a kitchen scale for accuracy. I weighed everything in this recipe that had a weight listed, including the filled cake pans.
Once the cakes were baked and cooled, I noticed they had a domed shape on top. I used my cake leveler to level them all to an even height before double-wrapping and freezing. Don’t have a cake leveler? You can use a long knife (I recommend a serrated bread knife) or dental floss to level the cakes. I like a combination of the two: I make the edges with dental floss then slice on the markings with a bread knife.
Tip: Be sure to freeze the cakes on a flat surface. The soft cake will mold itself to whatever it sits on while it freezes.
Speaking of freezing, make sure you have the shelf space to freeze them. I put one on top of a bag of peas and it froze with a slight curve. The cake began to hug the slightly rounded shape of the bag as it froze. I had to let it thaw a bit before it flattened back out.
My First Attempt at Swiss Meringue Buttercream
This Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake recipe uses a more Swiss meringue buttercream—something I have never made before. It’s similar to the Italian meringue buttercream I make for Vanilla Maple Whiskey Cupcakes. Both use egg whites, granulated sugar, and butter whereas the more popular American buttercream is made with butter and powdered sugar but no egg whites.
Making this new type of buttercream wasn’t too difficult. I separated the egg whites, weighed out the sugar and butter, and got cooking. The first step was to mix the egg whites and sugar, then place the bowl over a pot of simmering water. The mixture needed to be stirred gently while it warmed to allow the sugar to dissolve.
Tip: Mix the egg whites and sugar in the bowl you plan to mix them in. In my case, that was the stainless steel bowl from my stand mixer.
Next, the egg white-sugar mixture went into my stand mixer for 10 minutes. The bowl was filled with fluffy white meringue but the time it was done. The final step was to slowly add the butter and vanilla extract then give the buttercream a final mix so it could “tighten up”. That final mix was really when it went from looking like meringue to looking like buttercream.
Here’s where it all went wrong…
It all went smoothly according to the recipe. My mistake was dividing it and adding the Nutella before refrigerating it overnight. The next day I took the buttercream out and let it sit on the counter to come up to room temperature. It took a few hours!
It also needed to be whisked in the stand mixture to fluff it up. That also took away the streakiness that I needed for the watercolor effect. The worst part was the graininess. I think that’s the right word, anyway. There were small grains of butter that just wouldn’t mix in no matter what I did.
I spread a bit onto a layer of frozen cake and the graininess did not go away. I had to face the fact that the buttercream was ruined and into the trash it went. Immediately afterward I realized I didn’t photograph it so I could show what happened.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream, Take Two
Once I bought more eggs, butter, and Nutella, I gave this a second try. This time I made the buttercream the same day I planned to assemble and decorate my Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake. Sucess!
The buttercream came together as smoothly as it did the first time, and I had no problems coloring it with the Nutella. I had two bowls of streaky vanilla-Nutella Swiss meringue buttercream ready to use on my forthcoming cake.
Frosting the Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake
Frosting cakes is far from my strong suit, but there were some really helpful tips in this recipe. First, I placed the cakes on a cake board. The recipe advises using a cardboard cake board, but I chose a reusable plastic version. They are so handy!
The author’s tip about freezing the cakes first was great advice! I did the crumb coat and then a second layer without needing to chill the cake in between steps. The cakes seemed to hold together better when frozen, but there were a lot of crumbs in the frosting. Still, it smoothed out well and the crumbs weren’t a big deal since this cake has a rustic look.
It’s not part of the recipe, but I assembled and did the initial layers of frosting on a revolving cake table. It allowed me to rotate the cake as I covered it with frosting and made smoothing it much easier. It’s also lighter than my “pretty” cake stand, so moving it in and out of the refrigerator was a bit easier. I kept the cake on this revolving table until I added the ganache in step 14.
Making and Adding the Ganache
I’ve made chocolate ganache before, so this wasn’t new territory for me. I like to use a double boiler for ganache because I feel like I have more control. However, this recipe called for microwaving the ingredients. I went with it, and it worked! The ganache came together just as the recipe said with no extra heating required.
I reserved half a cup of ganache, placed it into the freezer, and began adding the remainder to my cake. I went slowly and cautiously, and I ended up with some satisfying chocolate drips down the side of the cake. It took me two goes of pouring a little ganache and spreading it with my offset spatula until it dripped.
The only mistake I made here was how I froze the 1/2 cup of ganache. I put it into a container with a lid, and it wasn’t close to fudgy after 30 minutes. I think the lid held in the heat and kept the cold air from reaching the ganache. Once I removed the lid it had a fudgy texture after another 10 minutes in the freezer.
Decorating my Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake
I struggle with using a piping bag, and this one was even more difficult since it had to be loaded with ganache and buttercream. It took some patience, but I got it done and even used the same piping tip linked in the blog post (Ateco 826).
My first swirl was mostly ganache. I didn’t think to push it out so I didn’t immediately get the mixed effect. My swirls were also far from perfect and too small. It sounds like a disaster, but it wasn’t. I added more frosting until I was mostly happy with the results. Then I unwrapped the Ferrero Rocher candies and squished them onto my imperfect frosting swirls and they suddenly looked great!
The final touch was spooning a drizzle of chocolate ganache onto each Ferrero Rocher buttercream decoration. And boom! I had a gorgeous Nutella Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Cake to drool over while I took photos.
Timing
This recipe (or recipes) did not have times listed except those in the instructions. I didn’t have a breakdown of prep, cooking, cooling, and total time so I am considering the accuracy of the cooking times for the time rating.
Here’s the breakdown of how my time was spent on this recipe:
- Devil’s Food Cake
- 29 minutes to prep
- 30 minutes to bake
- 30 minutes to cool in pan
- 10 minutes to cool on rack
- 11 minutes to level and wrap
- 1 hour 50 minutes total (overnight freezing not included)
- Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- 10 minutes to prep
- 28 minutes to cook and mix
- 7 minutes to divide and color with Nutella
- 45 minutes total
- Assembly and Decoration
- 19 minutes to assemble and frost cake
- 15 minutes to chill
- 5 minutes to add Nutella streaks
- 30 minutes to chill
- 16 minutes to make ganache & divide
- 30 minutes to freeze ganache
- 7 minutes to drizzle remaining ganache over top of cake
- 23 minutes to set drizzled ganache on cake
- 13 minutes to decorate cake
- 1 hour 52 minutes total
- 4 hours 27 minutes grand total
There were a few times that overlapped like being able to make the ganache while the cake chilled the second time and then adding it to the cake while the divided portion froze. Otherwise, most of it was consecutive steps. It’s also worth noting that this does not include time for the cakes to freeze. I planned to freeze mine overnight, but it ended up being a couple of days since I had a mishap with the first batch of buttercream.
