Chocolate Hazelnut Frosting on a Banana Layer Cake. Simple and Amazing for a birthday cake.

Another year bites the dust. Today is my 39th Birthday and I couldn’t be happier. The nice people from Nocciolata sent me some of their chocolate hazelnut spread to try out and so I made some frosting and drizzle with it to go on my chocolate chip banana birthday cake!

I know it’s a bit of a “nontraditional” birthday cake, but I loved it!

Celebrate your next birthday with a banana cake that is full of walnuts and chocolate chips and topped with an easy chocolate hazelnut frosting.

Banana Cake with Chocolate Hazelnut Frosting

by Karyn Granrud

Keywords: banana chocolate hazelnuts cake

Ingredients

For the Cake

1 1/2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2/3 C butter
1 2/3 C brown sugar
1 C masked bananas
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/4 C + 1 Tbls buttermilk
1/4 C walnuts
1/2 C mini chocolate chips

For the Frosting

1/2 C Nocciolata Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
1 C powdered sugar
1 Tbls milk

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease two 6″ round pans.

Mix the dry ingredients together and set aside.

In your mixer, blend the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the bananas then the egg and egg yolk. Reduce the mixer to low and alternately add the flour and buttermilk just until mixed. Fold in the walnuts and chocolate chips.

Divide the batter between the two pans and bake for 25 – 30 minutes.

Cool in the pans for 30 minutes then remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

For the Frosting

Whip the Nocciolata and powdered sugar with milk until light and fluffy. When the cakes are cool, frost one top, place the second cake on top and frost just the top. I used a 1M large open star tip to make a rosette design.

Melt 2 tablespoons of Nocciolata in the microwave for 30 seconds. Add a bit of milk to make it like a ganache and drizzle it over top and down the sides.

Recipe adapted from Joy the Baker Cookbook: 100 Simple and Comforting Recipes

How do you handle your birthday? Having a Halloween birthday has always been awesome. There’s always a party and there’s always a fun time.

The parties have changed quite a bit over the past few years. They are geared a bit more to my daughter’s trick-or-treating and that’s okay with me. It makes me happy to see her experience all the happiness, fear, and wonderment that she sees.

This cake was wonderfully moist and delicious. I’ve stuffed it with chocolate chips, walnuts, and raisins and decided not to frost it completely. The chocolate hazelnut frosting was literally the frosting on the cake. It was so yummy and complimented my cake completely.

To add a little extra melted Nocciolata poured over and it was great!

Super high and so decadent, this naked banana cake is amazingly delicious. Whip it up for your next weekend dessert.

So, back to my question. How do you handle your birthdays? Do you dread them or welcome them? Do you forget about them and pretend that they didn’t happen? We all get older and I think that it’s a good thing to celebrate and embrace.