Yellow Cake with Whipped Nutella Icing

We love some Nutella in our house.
My Little Brother invented his own Nutella stuffed croissant rolls.
We LOVE coffee in my house, and coffee liquors.
My family is insane but we are really, really close.
Little Brother just came back from spending a month and a half in Venezuela on a missions trip.
His birthday was during this trip.
I call him Little Brother even though he now towers over me and is in his twenties.

Okay, that last one doesn't really tie in to the story, but the first five do. When Little Brother came back from his trip, we only had a few days together. I knew I wanted to make him a birthday cake and have everyone celebrate. Clearly, I should make him a Nutella cake.

My time at home is so precious because I have almost a billion (yes, I'm not even exaggerating. Except a little. It's hyperbole.) people to see and have to drive all over the tri-state area to see them. So the day he was coming home, making a scratch cake was out. Too many people in the house, too much going on. So I bought a box mix - not something I really like to do. I bought a yellow box mix and jazzed it up with some pudding mix. You know, though, that the pudding makes it too thick. I thinned it with Kahlua. Delish.

I stacked the cakes with a layer of straight Nutella between them. Actually, to be honest, I used store brand. It's just as good for this cake with all the surrounding flavors. I'm not sure how it would be as a normal spread but I'm sure the difference is minimal.

Then I had to make the icing. I found this simple recipe from Yummly.com: 13oz of Nutella, 12oz whipping cream, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. I whipped the cream for a bit so it was fluffy but not stiff or anything. Then I emptied the container of Nutella into the whipped cream and blended it together. Add the vanilla mix until completely incorporated.

Also, it was really hot when I made this so even though everything was cold, the whipped icing strange to work with. I pretty much poured it on the cake. Surprisingly, it was a good enough consistency that it did not drip off the cake like I thought it would. In fact, it was perfect. How could it not be when I'm behind the mixer? Okay, that's a stretch.

So because it was liquidy, it was hard to put a "design" on the cake. I decided to go for a cute swirled top that all met in the middle like a peppermint and used the technique often seen on ombre cakes to decorate the sides.* Unfortunately, I apparently didn't get pictures of the cake. These I'm sharing are more focused on Little Brother, which I know he would prefer anyway. You can see the cake on the bottom, though. And one of the inside where you can see that our family of 7 almost demolished this cake. It was delicious and you definitely need to do this.

Update: found the picture of the cake I KNEW I had taken....enjoy the other pictures as well :)

*First, I didn't use the technique, per se. Really after it was iced I used my spatula to create a similar texture. Second, does anyone know what that technique is called? I've been looking around and most people online are calling it ombre, but the word ombre refers to the actual shading and not the technique.


I've linked up!