Add Nutella To Your Buttercream For A Next-Level Chocolate Raspberry Cake

If you're the type of person who wouldn't dream of considering it dessert unless chocolate is involved, then it's imperative you know that no one does chocolate cake quite like Ina Garten. Definitely one of those chocolate cake recipes you'll want to try again and again, the Barefoot Contessa's rich devil's food-style cake (made with freshly-brewed coffee) has two layers and a decadent chocolate buttercream frosting. However, Mashed recipe developer Kate Shungu takes Garten's chocolate cake recipe to a whole new level with the addition of Nutella and raspberry filling.

Although Garten uses semi-sweet chocolate and instant coffee granules to flavor her beloved buttercream, Shungu's frosting gets its chocolatey taste from a heaping helping of Nutella. It's that famous nutty spread — rather than coffee — that works to give the frosting more depth and turn this into one of the best chocolate desserts you'll ever taste. Blended with butter, milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract, "The Nutella frosting is," Shungu says, "super creamy, sweet, with lots of chocolate hazelnut flavor."

Everyone knows that the best thing about a cake with two layers is that extra bit of frosting in the middle. Recipe developer Kate Shungu's decision to add Nutella to the chocolate and coffee-flavored frosting works to significantly up the nutty ante, turning this cake into something similar to Christmas' favorite candy: Ferrero Rocher. But her inventive fine-tuning doesn't stop there. Beneath the first layer of frosting on the first layer of cake, Shungu carefully smears a thin layer of raspberry jam.

"Raspberries pair really well with chocolate, so I knew that flavor combination would be a slam dunk," Shungu says, adding, "Hazelnuts also pair well with chocolate and raspberries, which is where the inspiration for a Nutella frosting was born." But spreading a thick Nutella buttercream over raspberry jam is no easy feat. That's why she recommends using a piping bag to apply strips of frosting over the jam, saying, "The piping bag technique gives you a good head start on getting the frosting spread into an even layer."