The Most Chocolatey Birthday Cake... EVER! Happy Birth

I can't promise this is healthy...

Howdy! I didn't blog last week, I wanted to but I attempted to bake gluten free biscuits for my gluten free friend and it went sooooo wrong. You would've laughed! Anyone else have trouble with gluten free baking? I've attempted a few things for my friend but it never goes to plan, maybe it's just me... Oh well, back to what I'm (fairly)good at.

Happy Birthday!

Every year, we have a week in February, where three of our friends have birthdays on three consecutive days. (What are the chances?!) We're all heading out for Sunday grub today and although the desserts, at the place we are heading to, have come highly recommended, you can't have a birthday gathering without a birthday cake... enter 'The Chocolate Beast!"

I discovered this recipe through the blog What Jessica Baked Next and have had my eye on it for a while, I just needed to find an excuse to make such a chocolate dream! I found Jessica through Instagram. Her recipes are so straight forward, go and check her out. I highly recommend the Ferrero Rocher cheesecake, deeeeelicious. 

On with the bake...

You will need

For the cake...
(I used a 9 inch cake tin)

220g Plain Flour
450g Caster Sugar
2 tsp Bicarb of Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
85g (good quality) Cocoa Powder
2 medium eggs
250ml Buttermilk
125ml Vegetable Oil
250ml Fresh Strong Coffee

To decorate...

450g Chocolate Fudge Icing
Pack of 16 (2 finger) Kit Kat Bar's
Large sharing bag of chocolate M&M's

What to do...

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line your cake tins with greaseproof paper and grease the sides with butter. Sift all of your dry ingredients(flour, sugar, bicarb, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder) into a large bowl. 

Mix with a wooden spoon until well combined.

2. Next, add the wet ingredients (eggs, buttermilk, oil and coffee) and mix in an electric mixer until well combined and it is a smooth mixture (no lumps)!

Mmmm, chocolate...

3. You are now going to split your mixture between the two cake tins. I ended up with around 1500ml of cake mix so I poured approximately 750ml of cake mix into each tin. Bake your cakes for around 35-40 minutes, until your cakes have risen and a knife comes out clear when gently pushed into the middle of the cake. 

Don't forget to lick the bowl ;-)

4. Allow your cakes to be completely cool before you begin to decorate. You need to spread a thin layer of the fudge icing on to the top of one of your cakes and then place the other cake on top like a sandwich. Next spread the rest of the fudge icing all around the top and sides of the cake.

5. Next, you are going to place (single) Kit Kat Bar's all around the outside edge of your cake. Then, sprinkle M&M's on top of your cake. Tie a colourful ribbon around the outside of the cake and you are done. 

I'm so excited to present this to my friends later, I think they're going to love it. It really is so simple but I think it looks super effective. A real fun cake for the kids or the grown ups in your life! I'll let you know how it goes down over on Instagram later.

Oh, and a big Happy Birthday to my wonderful friends! I hope you have a great day, love you all lots!

Amy x