Nutella Swirl Poundcake

I've not cooked much using Nutella but intend to in the future as I've been coming across interesting sounding recipes. With that in mind I tried this recipe I found, changed it a bit, and was very pleased with the results.

It's simple, straight-forward and delicious.

Source: Food and Wine

1 1/2 cups flour (I used bread flour, but all purpose works just as well)

4 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 softened sticks of butter

1 1/4 cups sugar
1 jar Nutella

Preheat the oven to 325°. Lightly grease and flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

In a mixing bowl combine butter and sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs and combine thoroughly. Add vanilla, salt and baking powder and mix well. Add flour and mix until incorporated. Do not overmix.

Pour 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan and level it out with spatula. Drop 4 heaping tablespoons of Nutella onto batter and use spatula to smooth out as much as possible. (It's thick so don't worry if it's not perfect, you're going to swirl it around anyway)

Pour another 1/3 of the batter over the Nutella, spread smooth and add 4 more heaping tablespoons of Nutella and smooth out. Top with remaining batter. (You will not use the entire jar of Nutella)

Now, here's an important part of this recipe. When I made this the first time, I made a mistake which was I didn't swirl the Nutella enough. Plus I used a thin implement to do so. The Nutella is thick and wet, and when I baked it, although most of the loaf was done perfectly, the large pockets of Nutella kept the dough around it from baking fully, so it was doughy.

I made it again, and this time, I used a spatula, and sunk it into the layers of batter and Nutella and swirled quite a bit to evenly distribute it throughout the dough.

Bake at 325 degrees for at least an hour and as long as 1 hour 15 minutes. Check it carefully but fully inserting a toothpick and ensuring it comes out clean.

Let cool for 15 minutes, remove from loaf pan onto wire rack and cool thoroughly.

Enjoy!