The Nutella flower is a very soft dessert, easy to make, and tasty for any time of the day. I recommend using a good active sourdough starter to prepare it. It is very reminiscent of the classic chocolate bun that we all love. The basic dough is naturally leavened and filled with the classic hazelnut cream, Nutella. For those who love this fantastic spreadable cream, I have prepared a top list of recipes.
To prepare this Nutella flower several hours of leavening are required, but if you want a faster version you must replace the sourdough starter with the classic brewer’s yeast. I love using sourdough because it makes recipes more digestible and gives them a particular flavor.
For sourdough lovers, I also remind you of other savory and sweet recipes
- Difficulty: Medium
- Rest time: 10 Minutes
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Cooking time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 16 large pieces
- Cuisine: Italian
- Energy 288.87 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 48.43 (g) of which sugars 18.30 (g)
- Proteins 5.63 (g)
- Fat 8.91 (g) of which saturated 6.68 (g)of which unsaturated 1.88 (g)
- Fibers 1.29 (g)
- Sodium 59.38 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 85 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (260W)
- 3/4 cup potato starch
- 1/2 cup milk (warm)
- 150 g sourdough starter (after two refreshments)
- 2 Eggs (whole)
- 3/4 cup sugar (granulated)
- 1 tsp Honey
- 1/3 cup Butter (softened)
- to taste Nutella®
Mixing Tools
To knead, I recommend using a stand mixer, and I suggest using a round cake ring for shaping the flower, but it’s not necessary
- 1 Stand Mixer
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Ring
Preparation
The preparation of the dough is very simple, it only requires a long rising time because my recipe uses sourdough starter. You can substitute it with 15g of brewer’s yeast and reduce the rising time to just 2 or 3 hours
To start your Nutella flower, place the flour, starch, and broken sourdough starter in the stand mixer and start mixing with the dough hook on low speed, gradually adding the warm milk. When the ingredients start to combine, add the eggs one at a time, the sugar in at least two additions, always waiting for the previous ingredient to be absorbed by the dough, continue with the honey and the softened butter in at least three additions. You will get a fairly soft dough but not too sticky. Place it in an oiled container, cover with plastic wrap or a lid, and let it rise for 10/12 hours depending on the temperature of your home. I always use the turned-off oven for this step so there won’t be significant temperature fluctuations inside.
After 10/12 hours, your Nutella flower dough should be more or less like this, more than tripled.
Divide your Nutella flower dough into two or three balls according to your taste and roll these balls into circles of more or less equal size. To facilitate this operation, you could also roll out and then cut the obtained dough with a cake ring, I am content to roll the circles more or less equally since they will be worked again later.
Place your first circle on a baking sheet previously covered with parchment paper, and using a cake ring as you see in the photo, create the various layers of your Nutella flower alternating dough
and Nutella layer until you finish your dough balls. Your Nutella flower must always end with the dough on top and not the Nutella layer; therefore, if you have made three balls, you will have two layers of Nutella; if you have made four, you will have three layers of Nutella.
Now take your Nutella flower and with the help of scissors, cut it into multiple petals starting with four cuts, and decide how many petals you want to create. The cuts should never reach the center of your flower but stop at least 2 inches before. Each petal should be further divided in half to be rolled onto itself. I hope the photo is explanatory; otherwise, do not hesitate to ask.
Now roll each petal onto itself by taking the two ends of the petal and twisting them onto themselves towards the inside of the petal itself. Finally, join the two ends and press well on the end to keep them together.
This is more or less the final result that will need to rise again in a turned-off oven covered with plastic wrap until it doubles. It took me about 3 hours.
If you want to get a more beautiful and precise Nutella flower, I suggest, as I did last time, to place it in a round pan to rise and bake so as to have a well-defined border. I used a round pan with a diameter of 32 cm. This photo is before the second rising.
After about three hours in a turned-off oven covered with plastic wrap, I found it this way, brushed it with slightly beaten egg white, and baked it in a preheated oven at 356°F for about 20′.
When the surface is nice and golden, you can remove your Nutella flower from the oven, and the final result should be like this.
It is a very soft dessert like a filled brioche that you could enjoy at different times of the day.
NOTES
The Nutella flower is a very soft dessert suitable for any time of the day. With this recipe, you will get a nice big Nutella flower. If you don’t consume it all, my advice is to freeze it to always enjoy it as soft as freshly baked. It resembles bread and Nutella so much that like bread, it will have a different consistency the next day.
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