Easy Nutella-Swirl Almond Cake (Gluten Free!)

New name, new look, new vibe – It’s all happening right now. And this cake ain’t half bad either.

Welcome to WRY TOAST.

Over the past year I’ve been working on rebranding Cooking with Cakes into a more authentic representation of the cook, writer, and photographer I am today – I wanted a sleek and sophisticated platform that embodied the seasonal recipes I’ve come to love to create, all while staying true to my cheeky roots. WRY TOAST is that vision come to life.

When I started this blog it was merely a hobby, a cutesy creative outlet for my recipes, musings, and everyday life. But what began as an on-the-fly venture quickly turned from pastime, to passion, and now a career. So to honor this progression a change was in order, and that change is WRY. Easy, accessible recipes will continue to be my focus, all of them with the healthy, seasonal-spin you’ve come to rely on. But I’ve streamlined my attention into seven simple categories, all of them aimed at keeping you fed, full, and feeling fierce in your hectic, modern girl life.

Oh, and funny! I will still be making all the jokes.

So to kick off the wild world of WRY, I couldn’t think of anything better than a cake.

This isn’t your traditional, frosting-and-candles cake, it’s actually meant for breakfast or brunch. Brunch is the perfect opportunity to push eating boundaries — steak at 11am? waffles at 3pm? it all flys — so a breakfast cake fit for 2016 sounded like a worthy experiment.

The problem with the pound cakes and coffee cakes that so commonly populate brunch spreads is that they are 1- predictable, and 2- overloaded with butter, gluten, and sugar, all big no-no’s for the 2016 chick. So I started by working with almond flour for its gluten-free qualities, insanely aromatic flavor, and overall trendiness. Then I enlisted a whole bunch of eggs (4, to be exact) to keep the cake together – Gluten is a binding agent, so when working with GF flours you need to compensate for the lack of gluten by adding more bind, and eggs are one of the easiest ways to do so. The added eggs also help yield insanely luscious, moist texture, which means — in most cases! – when you’re working with a lot of eggs, you need little-to-no butter.

For this cake, the answer is none.

And as if a butter-less, gluten-free cake for breakfast wasn’t enough to make the world a better place, I decided to swirl in some Nutella.

I’ve worked with Nutella in countless cakes, and the one thing I’ve learned is this – The stuff sinks! No, not stinks, SINKS – As in to the bottom of your batter. So to thin its dense consistency I mixed it with a dash of almond milk, then a few tablespoons of plain batter. By doing this, the Nutella takes on a similar buoyancy to the cake batter, which makes for better, prettier, more even swirls.

It’s a small extra step, but it’s worth it.

The swirls may seem intimidating, but in the end you’ll be covering this cake with sliced almonds and powdered sugar, so don’t stress if your first attempts aren’t all that pretty. And swirling success or not, the flavor is still going to be off the chain. This cake is basically like a giant pignoli cookie with a Nutella swirl, which in layman’s terms mean it tastes like heaven threaded with chocolate hazelnut and wonderfully fragrant almond flavor.

It’s positively major.

And how should you serve it? Nestled between cappuccinos and mimosas on lace-draped tables, dolloped with fruit and fresh whipped cream – Guaranteed, any eggs will go cold. x

Easy Nutella-Swirl Almond Cake (Gluten Free!) Yield: 8 - 12 servings Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 30 - 35 mins Total Time: 50 Minutes Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups Almond Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

pinch of Salt

4 Large Eggs

1/2 cup Sugar

2 tsps Almond Extract

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Lemon Zest (from one lemon)

1/3 cup Nutella

1 1/2 tbsps Almond Milk + more if needed

Raw Sliced Almonds to garnish (optional)

Powdered Sugar to decorate (optional)

Crisco to grease Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350F. Amply grease springform pan with Crisco. In small mixing bowl combine the almond flour, baking powder, and salt, whisking well. In another, large mixing bowl, thoroughly whisk the eggs, sugar, almond extract, vanilla extract, and lemon zest until smooth. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, combining thoroughly until the batter has formed. Add a splash of almond milk at this time if the batter needs to be thinned. In another, small mixing bowl, combine the Nutella and 1 1/2 tbsps almond milk until incorporated. Next, add 2 tbsps batter into Nutella mixture, again stirring well until smooth. Transfer plain batter into well-greased springform pan, smoothing the top. Next, swirl Nutella mixture over the plain batter in the form of a bullseye, then use a butter knife to gently swirl the two together. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes until the top is golden and a toothpick comes out clean, then top with sliced almonds, powdered sugar, and serve!

swiiirrrl.