It was the twins' birthday over the weekend so we let them choose, bake, design and decorate their own birthday cakes. Baking your own cakes is far more fun and much cheaper than buying a ready made cake, as well as being way more satisfying. Ok, so the decorating may not look the most professional but that is part of the attraction, especially as the children get involved and do it themselves, thoroughly enjoying it on the way.
This is a really tasty chocolate cake recipe which proved easy to make. The icing may be a bit rich for some tastes but we all loved it.
Baking your own cakes is far more fun and much cheaper than buying a ready made cake, as well as being way more satisfying.
Pre heat the oven to 170c/325f
Add all the sponge ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix well. Don't worry if there are a few small lumps of butter, they melt in the oven and don't seem to cause a problem. You could do this in one of those electric mixers if you have one, we don't so elbow grease is the order of the day...
Grease and line with baking parchment two cake tins and divide the mixture equally between them. Tip - tap the tins on the table or work surface to make sure it spreads to the sides and is smooth on top
Place in the pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes. You can tell it's cooked by lightly touching the centre which should bounce back
Once cooked, remove from the oven, take the cake out of the tin and place on a wire rack to cool
To make the icing, break the chocolate into small pieces and place in smallish bowl with the cream. Place this bowl over a pan of boiling water and melt until it is thick
Then the two cake halves are cool, place one on a plate and cover the top with half of the icing. Place the second cake on top of the first and cover that with the rest of the icing. This can get messy, but don't worry!
We decorated it using Cadbury Flakes to make what was apparently a hedgehog! You can use whatever you fancy - writing icing, Smarties - the sky is the limit!
The children did pretty much everything on this chocolate birthday cake recipe; weighing, measuring, sieving, mixing, greasing, spreading, icing and decorating you name it. The only bit we got involved in was putting it in and taking it out of the oven. They had a fantastic time, their favourite bit being licking the bowls and spoons. Yes it can get messy but that is part of the experience (get them to help clean up too!).
Ingredients
Directions
Pre heat the oven to 170c/325f
Add all the sponge ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix well. Don't worry if there are a few small lumps of butter, they melt in the oven and don't seem to cause a problem. You could do this in one of those electric mixers if you have one, we don't so elbow grease is the order of the day...
Grease and line with baking parchment two cake tins and divide the mixture equally between them. Tip - tap the tins on the table or work surface to make sure it spreads to the sides and is smooth on top
Place in the pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes. You can tell it's cooked by lightly touching the centre which should bounce back
Once cooked, remove from the oven, take the cake out of the tin and place on a wire rack to cool
To make the icing, break the chocolate into small pieces and place in smallish bowl with the cream. Place this bowl over a pan of boiling water and melt until it is thick
Then the two cake halves are cool, place one on a plate and cover the top with half of the icing. Place the second cake on top of the first and cover that with the rest of the icing. This can get messy, but don't worry!
We decorated it using Cadbury Flakes to make what was apparently a hedgehog! You can use whatever you fancy - writing icing, Smarties - the sky is the limit!
