Dulce de Leche-Nutella Swirl Loaf Cake

There are still a few things Dan and I need to do to fully recover from our Great Beach Robbery -- getting new driver's licenses, for example -- but everything is closed on Sundays, so we've been having a pretty lazy day so far. We slept in until the hungry meows of our kitties could no longer be ignored, fed the little beasts, and then promptly collapsed in front of the TV to catch up on all the shows we missed during vacation.

But, once we'd blown through all the eps in our DVR queue, things got real boring real fast. Sundays are just so blah. I don't know about you, but nothing interesting ever happens to us on Sundays, and the day is mostly spent being lazy and dreading the start of the work week. As I type this, Dan is moaning "Boooo, we gotta work tomorrow! Ughhhhhhh." 

You know what's really good for fighting the end-of-weekend blues, though? Cake. Particularly if it's cake made with ice cream, homemade dulce de leche, and Nutella. Mmmm.

For this dulce de leche loaf cake, I found a simple vanilla loaf cake recipe online and modified it to fit my needs. Vanilla ice cream instead of chilled heavy cream; dulce de leche instead of sugar; and Nutella because if I didn't immediately use up the rest of the jar, I was going to keep eating it by the spoonful  and feel guilty. The resulting loaf was moist and sweet on the inside, with a deliciously crunchy Nutella-laced crust. 

Dulce de Leche-Nutella Swirl Loaf Cake

Ingredients:

- 1 cup vanilla ice cream, melted at room temperature.

- 2 large eggs

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 2/3 cup dulce de leche

- 1/2 cup Nutella

- 1-1/2 cups flour

- 2 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp salt

Steps:

(1) Preheat oven to 350.

(2) In a large bowl, mix together ice cream, eggs, vanilla, and dulce de leche until well-combined. The dulce de leche will make the batter clumpy, but just keep working at it until everything is smooth.

(3) Add dry ingredients.

(4) Pour most of the batter into a greased/floured loaf pan. Save about 1/2 cup for later.

(5) Add nutella to the loaf pan in well-spaced spoonfuls. Top with remaining batter. Then, run a knife through the whole thing to create a nice swirl/marbled pattern.

(6) Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the cake starts to come away from the side of the pan.

(7) Enjoy alone, with coffee, or smeared with more dulce de leche.

For other delicious chocolate recipes, go here.

Chocolate Coffee Ice Cream Cake

Now that I'm free and in the clear school-wise, my friends have been sending me links to recipes they know I have plenty of time to try out. This unique ice cream cake was at the top of the "Tina, please make this for us!" list. 

The recipe called for cake mix. Usually, I try to stay away from boxed mixes. I just feel so much more accomplished when I make things from scratch, you know? But no one can a culinary superstar all the time, and there's just no denying that sometimes boxed mixes just taste better.

So, what's so special about this cake? It's made with ice cream! But not like a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake, where there's a layer of ice cream sandwiched between layers of cake. Here, the ice cream is literally mixed into the batter. For this cake, I chose coffee flavored ice cream.

The ice cream in this recipe acts like a substitute for milk in a regular chocolate cake, but the resulting batter is a lot creamier in consistency.

The batter looks a lot like melted ice cream going into the oven, but it turns out to be a pretty nice cake. Just be sure to thoroughly grease and flour (I dusted with cocoa powder) your bundt cake pan, or you'll end up with only half the cake on your plate like I did. Ugh.

I am absolutely going to add ice cream to every cake I bake from now on. I couldn't really taste coffee at all, but the cake was unbelievably moist and soft -- probably the best cake I've ever made. Chocolate ganache was a great touch, but the cake is so good by itself I may not use any kind of icing next time.

Recipe and backstory can be found here.