Vanilla Chocolate Swirl cake

As you may know by now I quite like desserts. And cakes definitely feature quite high on my desserts list. I am not sure if its the actual end product or the baking process (which envelopes your house in this warm sugary aroma) which I like more. I find there is something infinitely therapeutic about mixing together a cake batter. The company of sugar, butter and vanilla essence can make anyone happy, don't you think? Add chocolate to the mix and you have quite a party.

So baking this vanilla chocolate swirl cake made me quite happy on a recent day off. I had been drooling over several swirl cake recipes from a few of my favorite blogs and had them bookmarked as must tries. I finally decided to try this one especially because it had room for addition of nuts. The original recipe called for pistachios and pistachio paste. I didn't have any of the paste so I skipped that and I used chopped hazelnuts instead of the pistachios. The hazelnuts substitution was well thought out in an attempt to recreate the gooey chocolatey heaven presented by a Ferrero-Rocher. And it didn't disappoint!

I am sending this as an entry to the Cakes and Cookies event hosted at this beautiful Indian food blog, Spices Etc.

Recipe from 101cookbooks and edited:

(I skipped the ganache from the original recipe but I am sure it will be lovely on this cake)

270 g (2 C) flour

2 tsp baking powder (1 envelope)

1 tsp baking soda

150 g (2/3 C) butter, at room temperature

300 g (1 1/4 C) white sugar

4 eggs

1 1/2 C (3 x 125 ml) plain yogurt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

60 g (1/3 C) chocolate chips

60 g (1/3 C) shelled hazelnuts chopped

- Preheat your oven to 180C (360F). Grease a 25cm (10-inch) cake pan, preferably non-stick.

- Prepare the chocolate batter. In a food processor, mix together half of the sugar and half of the butter and beat until fluffy. Add in two of the eggs, one at a time mixing between each. Add in half of the yogurts and all the vanilla extract, mix again.

- In a medium bowl, combine half of the flour with half of the baking powder, half of the baking soda and all the cocoa powder.

- Add the flour mixture into the food processor and mix again until just combined. Add half the chocolate chips and mix well.

- Pour the batter into the cake pan, and reserve in the refrigerator.

- Rinse the bowl of the food processor and prepare the vanilla batter by mixing together the rest of the sugar and butter. Add in the last two eggs, one at a time mixing in between. Add the rest of the yogurt and mix again.

- In a medium bowl, combine remainder of the flour with the remainder of the baking powder and the baking soda. Add this to the sugar mixture and mix until just combined.

- Take the cake pan out of the fridge and sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips and the chopped hazelnuts on top of the chocolate batter.

- Gently pour the vanilla batter on top and smooth out the surface with a spatula.

- Put into the over to bake for about an hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let rest for five minutes on the counter in pan. Then turn it out onto a rack to cool completely.