CHOCOLATE BIRTHDAY CAKE RECIPE

It was my sister's birthday last month and I was unable to celebrate it with her as I was at university. I decided once I was home I would make her a birthday cake from scratch. I always find that baking a cake yourself is so much more thoughtful than buying one, and seeing as it was easy to make I thought I would share the recipe!

Prep: 30 minutes

Bake: 25 minutes 

Serves 8 

Ingredients

Sponge

3 eggs

175g self raising flour 

175g unrefined dark muscovado sugar 

175g butter (unsalted)

1 and a half teaspoons of baking powder 

40g cocoa powder 

5 tablespoons of boiling water 

Buttercream

500g icing sugar

160g butter (unsalted)

50ml milk

Chocolate ganache 

150ml double cream

150g dark chocolate 

Decoration

3 packs of chocolate fingers 

Box of Maltesters (you can use whatever you like, Smarties, Chocolate Buttons, Minstrels...)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and then grease and line two cake tins

2. Beat the eggs, flour, sugar, butter and baking powder until the mixture is light and combined

3. Use another bowl to mix together the cocoa powder and the 5 tablespoons of boiling water which will create a paste and then add this to the mix

4. Fold the chocolate paste into the cake batter 

5. Pour out equal amounts of this cake batter into the two cake tins and bake them for 20 to 25 minutes 

6. Once they are both baked, leave them to cool in the tin and then take them out of the tins and place them on a cooling rack

7. Blend together the icing sugar and the butter to make the buttercream, but gradual add the milk until it has the right consistency 

8. Once the cake has completely cooled, spread the buttercream on top of the two cake sponges and sandwich them together. Leave the top layer for the chocolate ganache and remember to save some of the buttercream to stick the chocolate fingers on the outside of the cake

9. Place the cream and the dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl to make the chocolate ganache, and melt this over a pan of simmering water

10. Remove the ganache from the heat and allow it to thicken 

11. Spread a thin layer of the remaining buttercream around the outside of the cake and stick the chocolate fingers on

12. Pour the ganache on top of the cake and add the remaining chocolate fingers to it before it sets. I used them to divide the cake into equal sections and then filled them with Maltesers. 

13. For decoration, I added a happy birthday decoration on the top of the cake and added a ribbon around the outside of the cake which also holds the chocolate fingers in place.

12. I then put the cake in the fridge for a couple of hours to allow the chocolate to set and stop it from melting. 

Thanks for reading!

Emma x

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