Arretje nof – the simplest chocolate cake
Isn’t it funny how certain foods can transport you right back into your childhood? When I was a little kid I already loved to bake, but we never really got much further then the standard (but tasty!) apple pie and this Arretje Nof.. Now as far as I have been able to tell, this is a very typical and old fashioned Dutch cake. We used to make it for just about every kids party and I loved making it, as it was soooo simple and soooo good. I hadn’t thought about arretje nof in ages but when I was looking for Christmas desserts I ran into another recipe which reminded me of arretje nof. So I said something to Tom about it and he looked at me with one of those blank stares… “Arretje.. who???”
Kids heaven
Turns out he never even heard of this!! So naturally I just had to make it again. It had been roughly 30 years ago that I last made this famous Dutch chocolate cake and I was a little curious where that weird name came from, which is also impossible to translate by the way…
Apparently Arretje is the name of a cartoon character that was invented by the Dutch Oil Factory (Nederlandse Olie Fabriek) later to be known to many as Calve. Arretje, a brave little Turkish boy, born and raised in Baghdad was featured in a series of 5 little booklets around the year 1926 (!) and was a big hit. In those books the company was only referred to with the letters NOF, so before you knew it; Arretje was called Arretje Nof.
I haven’t been able to find out why then this cake was called by that name but my guess is that it might have had something to do with the original ingredients which were deepfrying oil and I am guessing that mr. Calve produced that in those days.
I am happy to report that the frying oil has been replaced by butter, although technically I am not sure how much more healthy that is. This is a delicious cake and Tom had to agree even though he keeps calling it my Ivan Rebroff cake. 
It doesn’t require any baking; a few hours in the fridge is all you need and you can be sure that kids will absolutely love it (and so will grown ups by the way!) It’s almost like a firm chocolate mousse cake with crunchy biscuits in between. It’s about time that Arretje goes international!
Arretje Nof
Yield: 12
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 4 hrs
Total Time: 4 hrs and 15 mins
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 250g sugar
- 125g cacao powder
- 375g butter (melted)
- 275g biscuits
Directions:
| Let the butter melt very slowly on low heat. Break all the biscuits in small pieces. Line a cake tin with baking paper. | |
| Mix the eggs and sugar together. Carefully add the cocoa powder through a sieve into the egg/sugar mixture. Pour in the melted butter. Do this one step at the time to make it easier to incorporate the butter into the mix. As soon as the butter is entirely incorporated into the mix add the biscuits and stir everything together so all biscuit pieces are coated with chocolate. Put everything in the cake tin |
|
| Put in the fridge and leave to stand at least 4 hours or preferably overnight to become solid enough to cut. | |
Note
You cannot substitute the butter in this recipe for oil as it is the butter that makes the cake 'set'. So substituting for oil will mean that the cake will never set and you'll have a liquid cake
Simple but so good!
Appetizer
Asian
Bread
Breakfast
Desserts & other sweets
Healthy
We both had chocolate on our mind today
This one’s going on the to bake list for later this week!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 4th, 2011 at 17:22
I should have gone for your chocolate instead..
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Looks delightful, not sure if you will have many American takers for fear of raw eggs…..and the deadly salmonella..but for those that raise their own chickens and trust their sources, this looks really good
Another recipe of yours printed that I would like to try!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 4th, 2011 at 17:29
Ah yes, the raw egg thing.. Never thought about that..lol.. But yeah if you know where the eggs come from you should be allright!
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This is interesting and I’ve never heard of Arretje Nof before… don’t even know how to pronounce it probably… hahaa.. BTW what type of biscuits are you using?
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 4th, 2011 at 18:04
I used just regular plain tea biscuits but you can use whatever you like best..
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Simple maybe, but oh so divine! That is one irresistible treat.
Cheers,
Rosa
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 10:14
Thanks Rosa!
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My Mum used to make something very similiar to this, when I was a kid, except that she normally put nuts and raisins in it as well. It was so good! (Thanks for the explanation of the name, by the way.)
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 10:14
Thanks Mark. It seems a lot of people have different versions to this recipe.. Funny how that works!
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I am going to pin this on Pinterest! It looks good! I am going to have to find some biscuits to make this. Should be a fun challenge.
Oh, and for the US eggs thing… There’s these eggs called safest choice eggs and they are already pasteurized.
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 10:20
O really? I never knew that existed..
Pasteurized eggs I mean, but I guess that is a good thing for a lot of people..!
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Looking at the picture it brought back memories of childhood for me, too. Yes, a typical kids birthday cake. I used to love it, but my mom never made it for me. In German we call this cake “Kalter Hund” (Cold Dog). Yummy!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 12:12
It’s quite funny to find out that this “typical” Dutch dessert (not so typical I guess) has it’s counterparts all around the world!
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in romania this is called “salam de biscuiti” which means biscuits salami except it doesn’ t use eggs at all but a syrup made from sugar and water. and depending on your preferences you can add nuts , raisins , turkish delight or my favorite , chocolate, some rum , and it’s rolled like a salami , hence the name
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 12:13
O I love the idea of rolling this like a salami too! It would even look like one (well apart from the color obviously)
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This looks sinful Simone! I love cold chocolate desserts – I put my chocolate cake in the fridge – so this is perfect for me. Thanks for introducing it to us!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 12:13
Thanks Reeni! I totally love it although it is not exactly friendly for the waistline…
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Cool! I love discovering recipes I haven’t heard of before, and seeing what different international dessert traditions exist!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 12:14
As it turns out it is quite an international dish by the sound of the all the different versions!
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so much fun how it got its name looks great
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 12:15
I also learned something new here, finding out that Calve used to be called the Dutch Oil Company which doesn’t sound at all like anything resembling a food company..lol
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4 ingredients and you’ve got yourself the christmas limelight!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 12:15
And..not to mention the fact that it takes just a few minutes really to whip it together!
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They call it biscuit cake here Simone. This was never a dessert here in Ireland during my childhood but recently it has made an appearance even as a layer as a wedding cake. I always thought it was a cake of an English origin :0)
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 12:16
O that would be a really heavy wedding cake if you used it! I am sure it must be English in origin too as it turns out to be Portuguese, English, Dutch and German too..lol
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Hello Simone. Wonderful recipes, amazing photos… I’m an admirer!
This is a very popular desert here in Portugal. We call it ‘salame de chocolate’ and kids love it!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 12:18
O it sounds you have a similar name to the one above here that Alice mentioned for Roemania!
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Love these chocolate salami-type desserts, great offering for the holidays with a sweet wine.
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 5th, 2011 at 13:05
Mmm o definitely. Which reminds me I need to ask for the name of a wine in the restaurant we went to the other day as it had the perfect wine to pair with chocolate!
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This cake looks scrumptious, Simone! So easy to put together! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
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This didn’t work for me
Maybe my fridge isn’t cold enough but the cake has been there since yesterday afternoon and it’s still liquid and hasn’t set at all.
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 6th, 2011 at 00:06
He Gaby. So sorry to hear that your recipe is not working. I’ve send you an email. Maybe we can figure out where it went wrong…
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Argh Simone this is wicked! I need some!
It’s very similar to what we call fudge cake in NZ, but we press it flat, more like bars or a slice.
I really like this presentation though, makes it more special and more dessert like. Yum!
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The name might be untranslatable but the cake looks delicious! Yum yum!
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That is a cool recipe. I can’t wait to try it.
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It looks fantastic!
Mu mother used to make it when I was little
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Sometimes, we need simple yet so well flavoured desserts to make us happy!
The cake looks fab!
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I have been waiting for this and came pretty late. Just went to heaven just looking at it. I have to make this sometimes, may be in a really small scale. or are u planning to mail some around for Christmas gifts?:)
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In Turkey, Jews call it “Gateaux Salam”.
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Yosi — December 7th, 2011 at 10:52
“Gateau Salam” sorry…
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Beautiful! You are becoming my new favourite baker Simone!
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Beautiful food photographs! Looking absolutely YUMMY.. Will surely try this..
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I’ve never heard of a Arretje Nof before this but I think it maybe referred to as a refrigerator cake as well. I’ve always loved how simple these types of cakes are to throw together.
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Simone (junglefrog) — January 3rd, 2012 at 09:52
The name ‘Arretje Nof” is probably very Dutch but yeah, refrigerator cake sounds pretty accurate too..
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This is delicious. In Uruguay, South America, we call it “salchichón de chocolate” (similar to the “salame de chocolate” from Portugal) It’s a typical dessert here, but we had to adapt the recipe due to the uncooked eggs…
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I’m Dutch and although I’ve never eaten it because we are very careful about raw eggs, I do know a lot of people more from the North do. They call it Arretjescake. It’s not very classic here, if you want to go classic you bake an Appeltaart (apple pie) or get vlaaien (pies) or Bossche bollen (big pastries of dough with chocolate glaze around it, filled with something which looks like whipped cream, they look a lot like big cream puffs)
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Benthe — July 31st, 2012 at 09:43
Oh god, you are Dutch, lol. I didn’t know that, this was the first time I visited this all. You’ll probably know all of this already.
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It is surprising as it is simple and tasty!
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I haven’t eaten this in years! In Italy we – as kids – called “Salame Vichingo” , which means viking’s salami, not sure why viking, but it was shaped like a salami, and now I may be thinking that the “vikings” weren’t real vikings but dutch! Thanks for posting this
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