Magic Microwave Nutella Cake

     This February marks an interesting time in my educational career. In two weeks, I will be done with classroom-based learning for the foreseeable future. While I am excited to begin third year in a few months, this will be the end of an era of my life. It will be the end of my comfort zone entirely as I have been in a classroom since I was 3 or 4 years old; indeed, I have done very little else. We got our third year schedules this past week. The student lounge when this occurred was a scene straight from the past. Everyone was eager to see what they got and compare with others, just like getting schedules in jr. high & high school. For the most part, I am pleased with my schedule. Happily I have the rotation I am least excited about and causes me the greatest anxiety first; I will be glad to get it out of the way. This is a difficult time in the course of medical education, mostly because it requires a great deal of self-discipline in the face of anxiety and undue stress given the increasing emphasis of board scores on residency applications. While I can feel the anxiety about the boards and beginning third year mounting with each passing day, I am determined to focus on one day at a time and try not to let the pressure to study all the time eat away at other areas of my life like eating real food and getting off my butt for a little while each day. On the whole, though, I am eager to get through these last hoops of classroom education and get into the wards. I am approaching third year with a somewhat open mind about what I ultimately want to go into, but it will be interesting to see how my specialty preference changes throughout the year.

Nutella Sugar Cookies & Coupons--A Moral Story

I will start off this story by stating that I conduct nearly all of my grocery shopping (and shopping in general really) at Costco and Target. Why Costco? I live practically on top of one Costco and drive by another almost every day. If you've got freezer room to spare and if you're like me and like to have things conveniently on hand, Costco is hard to beat. Why Target? For those smaller, incidental grocery items, Target usually has a good price, better than most grocery stores, and I happen to live across the street from one. What shall we conclude from this? Cheap and convenient is a major driving in the med student's life.

Those of you who shop at Costco are aware, I am sure, every once in awhile Costco assembles a group of coupons that are actually worthwhile! Conveniently the day after receiving such a collection of coupons in the mail, I had to go to Costco to pick up bagels en masse for a group event. For convenience, again my favorite motivating force, I decided to do some personal shopping while I was there because why waste a Costco trip, right? Right? Wrong! As I gleefully filled my cart with our necessities that were on sale (ok and some not so necessary items too), I had no idea what tragedy was lying in wait for me. One of these coupons was for something like $2 off Nutella. When I opened the coupons and flipped through them, this particular one was what I was looking forward to most. I had been eying the already fabulously priced Nutella at Costco for a month or two and this coupon finally gave me the impetus needed! I'll cut to the chase, I was about to pay for my items when I remembered to hand the coupons to the cashier who told me that the coupons weren't good until the next day. A reasonable person might have just not completed the purchase, but I'm a med student and time doesn't grow on trees, people! The cashier helpfully suggested that I could return everything tomorrow and repurchase it and the guy in line behind me lended some sympathy by relating a similar experience the previous month. I could have saved $11! Moral of the story? The first date on a coupon is just as important as the expiration date.

I have managed to live through my tragic coupon experience, but just barely. I was in need of some cookie therapy the other night. The husband unit recently gave me some cute fall-themed cookie cutters, which I was dying to use.  After my coupon ordeal, I have also been eager to whip out some Nutella. How could I combine the two? Of course! Nutella Sugar Cookies!

Nutella Cake

It’s that time of year again. Yes, it’s February and time for my birthday! I love February. It’s such an overlooked month. If it weren’t for Valentine’s Day, Groundhog Day (the movie) and the leap year phenomenon I think February would barely make it onto people’s radars. I like February, though, and not least because my birthday happens to fall in it. I think February is a relatively relaxing month. After the buildup and stress (for some people) of the holiday season and the New Year’s Resolution fad of January, February comes and returns life to normalcy. Usually by the time February rolls around, I’ve finally become somewhat comfortable writing the correct year when recording the date; it’s still winter (yay!) but spring is coming (also yay!), and, if you’re life is still dictated by an academic calendar, February marks a rough half-way point. What’s not to love? This morning it was properly overcast but the sun ended up coming out rendering my sweater and comfy boots rather warm. It’s better than being under multiple feet of snow, but I miss the cool, crisp, gray winter days and mornings of the Central Valley.

As today is my birthday and yesterday there was an elephant-sized anatomy exam, I felt a cake was in order. A proper cake, not just cup cakes. Cup cakes are good for anytime, but cakes require an occasion. After much deliberation, I decided to forego the traditional chocolate or funfetti cake and try something new. Pumpkin was suggested, but I’m on a bit of a Nutella kick so I decide to make Nigella Lawson’s Nutella Cake with Chocolate Ganache. This is a delightfully dense (alliteration oo-er) flourless cake. I was excited to try it since I’ve never even made a flourless chocolate cake before! It turned out well (peer-reviewed and everything!) despite a couple slight snafus in the preparation process.

Once you’ve gathered everything you need for the cake then it’s time to get crackin’! Literally you need to get cracking as you need to separate six eggs. Note that it says separated eggs not just egg whites. I read the first few lines of the recipe and only saw egg whites and threw all my yolks away. I then had to crack six more eggs and save the yolks. In a small bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff. If you don’t have the patience or wrist technique to do that by hand, I fully encourage using an electric mixer to speed up the project immensely. I mixed the egg whites until they peaked, that is, when you lift out the whisk/mixer there are little peaks that stick up. I stopped when they just barely started to peak but you could probably mix/whip them longer.

In a large bowl cream together an entire 13 oz. jar of Nutella (intense!) and 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter. When this is done, grind up some pecans/hazlenuts/almonds whatever you have on hand. I used a little wanna-be food processor to do this and ended up with nuts that were not quite finely ground. Add in the nuts, egg yolks, and water. Next melt 4 oz. of chocolate and fold that into the mixture. I totally missed this part and ended up folding in chocolate after I had folded in part of the egg whites. Oops! Then gently fold in the egg whites a bit at a time.

When this is all done, pour it into a (well-)greased spring-form pan. Try to make the batter as level as possible in the pan. Major disturbances could show up in your finished product. Did I mention I was so excited I got to use my spring-form pan for a second time?! Note to self, must make more cakes as spring-form pan is feeling neglected. If you have parchment paper, you could line the pan. I don’t have any (I know, how could I be relatively into baking and not have parchment paper?) and I didn’t have any trouble. Pop it into the oven and bake for 40 minutes. Be sure to savor that wonderful, distinctive Nutella aroma that will fill your kitchen/apartment.

Let the cake cool completely. I repeat, let the cake cool completely before you do anything to it. I get very eager and impatient, but in this case it’s really best to wait for it to be cool. When it’s cool you should have no trouble removing the side of the pan. In fact, I left my cake cool all night before topping it with the ganache. The cake had completely separated from the edge of the pan so it was a cinch to remove the sides.

Now for the ganache. I used dark chocolate in the cake, but I accidentally buy enough for the ganache. I ended up using semi-sweet chocolate chips for the ganache and I think it was a nice complement.  Measure out 4 oz and chop it if necessary. I don’t have a food scale so I estimated 4 oz of chocolate chips by laying them in a singe layer roughly the dimensions of a 4 oz block of baking chocolate. At 7 am this morning when i was doing this I thought I was a genius! Toss the chocolate in a saucepan over medium-low heat with some water and cream (I used half and half because that’s what I had around). Melt the chocolate and then stir/whisk for a good 20 minutes until it reaches the consistency you want. While you continue to heat and stir, the ganache will thicken. I’ve never made ganache before so I guessed when it was thick enough. I also had to go to class which may or may not have been the major factor in my deciding it was thick enough.

When sufficiently thickened, remove from heat and let it cool off. Then pour this on top of the cake and spread it out to get a nice shiny layer on your cake. Then, voila! Enjoy with friends!


Happy February!
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Nutella Cake with Chocolate Ganache
recipe adapted from here
Ingredients
Cake:
6 large eggs, separated - keep both the yolks and egg whites
pinch salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 13-ounce container Nutellla
1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup finely ground pecans
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled (I used 70% Cacao)
Ganache:
1/2 cup half and half
1 tablespoon water
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
optional: hazlenuts to decorate the top of the cake (see original recipe)
Directions:
Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff.
3. In another large bowl, cream the butter and Nutella together. Then add the water, egg yolks, and ground pecans.
4. Fold in melted chocolate.
5. Add a blob of beaten egg whites to the chocolate batter and mix gently until well-combined. Fold in the remaining whites, one-third at a time, very gently but thoroughly.
6. Pour into springform and bake for 40 minutes. Test for doneness by inserting toothpick in the center, which should come out mostly clean; lightly pressing finger into top to check for a slight bouncing-back; and observing edges beginning to separate from pan. Let cool completely in pan.
Ganache:
1. Chop chocolate, and add to sauce pan with half and half and water over medium-low heat. Once chocolate is melted and components are combined, whisk until mixture reaches desired thickness, then cool.
2. Remove rim of cake pan and pour cooled ganache over, spreading lightly to create a smooth, shiny surface.

Nutella Cookies!

Everyone loves Nutella, right? They must else there wouldn’t be World Nutella Day coming up on Feb. 5th. The interwebs are abuzz with Nutella creations and I couldn’t resist joining in. Especially since it means taking a break from studying the anatomy of the pelvis & perineum. Bleh.

I generally don’t buy Nutella because I end up sneaking it straight from the jar. I figured, however, if I could use it for a recipe then perhaps it’d be alright. Just this once. These cookies are a little bit like chocolate chip cookies but with Nutella in the batter. The Nutella has replaced some of the butter. The recipe I used called for mini-chocolate chips, but I only had regular chocolate chips. If I were to do it again I would probably chop the regular chips a bit smaller. It doesn’t make that much of a difference, though and you could probable even leave out the chocolate entirely if you wanted.
Begin with room temperature butter. Cream the butter together with the two sugars. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Now for the fun part. Mix in the Nutella. Make sure to savor the way the batter turns to a wonderful light Nutella-y brown color.

Combine the ingredients in a small bowl separately. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet then fold in the chocolate chips. Drop spoonfuls on to the baking sheet and pop them in the oven for 6-7 minutes.

Lastly and most importantly: enjoy!
Nutella Cookies
 Recipe from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody
Ingredients:
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup Nutella or other hazelnut chocolate spread
1 egg
½ tsp. vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Cream butter with an electric mixer until smooth (around 1 minute). Add the sugar and brown sugar. Beat on high speed about 3 minutes until light & fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. If the butter was cold and not room temperature, the mixture will turn crumbly instead of fluffy. Mix in the egg and vanilla. Next add the Nutella and mix well.
In a small bowl stir the flour, baking soda and salt together. Add these dry ingredients to wet ingredients slowly and mix until incorporated. Keep mixing just until the dough is smooth. Fold in chocolate chips.
Form the dough into balls and place on cookie sheet. Bake 6-7 minutes. Let cookies cool for 5-10 minutes before transferring them off the baking sheet. Makes around 30-35 cookies.