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November 1, 2011

A chocolate birthday cake to slice thinly

Baking, Cakes and Bakes 57 Replies

I don’t believe in horoscopes. It’s the one page of a magazine I literally turn over without even a scan. And I will read anything – even takeaway menus, so that’s saying something. However, it did occur to me recently, whilst chatting with my Nanna (or Great Nan Nan – as she’s known to the under 3s in the family) that a lot of our family are born in October. Now this could mean one of two things. Either that we as a family feel the cold more than most in January and retire to bed early and need to, ahem, keep warm. Or that something is written in the stars – a family destined to be a collective of Librans, diplomatic, indecisive and flirtatious. Which of course brings me back to the first theory.

So this has been the month of birthday parties and for me, birthday cakes should be chocolate. The decoration is neither here nor there. What’s required is a dense chocolate cake; a cake that makes you work for it as you push the knife through. The kind of cake that can only be eaten in small quantities save you feel a bit, well, nauseous. This is that very cake.

(NB: The lovely people at Dr. Oetker very kindly sent me some bits and bobs to try out. They didn’t pay me, though I wish they had of course. I’m telling you this in case you’re alarmed by the number of  Dr. Oetker products.)

Ingredients:

For the cake:

  • 4 large eggs
  • 265g plain flour
  • 265g Stork margarine
  • 265g demerera sugar
  • 65g cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1tbsp glycerine
  • 3 tbsp milk

For the icing and filling:

  • 250g soft, unsalted butter
  • 500g icing sugar
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 85g fudge chunks like these or I believe Asda and Sainsbos do some own brand ones too

To decorate:

  • Use whatever you like but we (and by that, I mean myself and my eldest son) liked Dr Oetkers Choco Beans

Set your oven to Gas 5 and make sure you have two racks in the middle two rungs of the oven. Then grease and line your baking tins. The tins I used are quite small, only 20cm ish wide. They do not have loose bottoms so proper greasing and lining is essential. Now, I did try this lovely spray which, if I’m honest, I didn’t think would work. Well it did. I am going to use it again soon just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. And if it does work then sales of greaseproof paper in Leicester will go down. (Oh how I hate lining cake tins, it’s up there with ironing for me.)

This is a throw it all into the bowl and whizz together cake. So do just that with all the cake ingredients and mix with a handheld electric mixer until smooth and creamy in consistency. Took about 4 minutes with my mixer. Then pour into the sprayed or lined cake tins – about half in each tin. Bake in the oven for around 25 minutes until a cocktail stick comes out of the centre clean. Now the size of your tins will affect this. If they’re larger then the cake will take less time, smaller then they may take longer to bake. Use your cocktail stick to gauge readiness.

Once out of the oven, flip onto a wire rack to cool. (I put the rack on top of the tin with the cake in it and use oven gloves to turn the two upside down, thus releasing the cake from the tin onto the rack – you need a rack for each cake though.)

In the meantime make the buttercream. I use my trusty freestanding mixer for this and simply pop the butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence and milk into it and beat on a low setting at first (about 1 minute) and then on a high setting for another 5 minutes until really light and fluffy. You can of course beat by hand, just be careful to add the icing sugar in small amounts so as not to end up covered in a sugar snow storm. If this cake had been for my sons then I’d have coloured the buttercream a garish hue but given the recipients birthday was a double digit job which began with a 6 it didn’t seem dignified.

Finish the cake using buttercream and fudge pieces to fill, then the rest of the buttercream to ice the sides and the top. I use a regular butter spreading knife rather than a palate knife. Less unwieldy in my book. Decorate with anything that takes your fancy. Baa Baa, AKA Grandad really likes multi coloured chocolate beans. Or at least he does now.

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57 comments

  2. hi holly!!! Is it ok to use butter instead of the stork margarine for the cake? Or is it better to stick to the margarine?

  3. Hi Holly, can we do cupcakes as well with the same recipe? I am making a big cake and few cupcakes for a birthday next week and wanted to follow the same recipe for the big cake and cupcakes..

    • You can use it for cupcakes but it’s pretty dense – there’s another choc cupcake recipe on here (with Mars bar icing) which would be better. xxx

  4. I made this cake for my little boy’s 4th birthday and it was absolutely delicious! Thanks for sharing such a wonderful recipe, Holly. It was a great hit! I’ve directed everyone to your blog ;-)

  5. I made this cake and the demerera sugar didn’t melt.  I could see the little pieces of sugar in the cake.  Do you know why this happened?  Thanks

      • Hi Holly, Actually they weren’t.  The eggs and stork came straight out of the fridge.  Was that the problem to you think?

        Thanks

        Amelia

        • I always keep eggs out on the counter and let everything come to room temp pre baking. I also use an oven thermometer too as a lot of ovens run at higher or lower temps than they say which can affect the melting of ingredients. Xx Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

  6. This may be a silly question but is the 1tbsp glycerine important? I really want to make this and realised that I don’t have any glycerine.

    • It makes the crumb more tender as this is a very dense fudgey cake, but no… By no means essential. Just won’t keep as well. Xxx Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

  7. Just to say I made this for the head for a very hungry caterpillar cake and it turned out brilliantly! So easy and lovely! Thank you :-)

  8. Holly, or anyone who can help!

    Do you think this would be suitable for a first birthday cake that would be covered in fondant to make the head of a hungry caterpillar?! I  think it will be mainly eaten by parents and the occasional little one

    • It would as to be honest, in my experience of very young kids parties they tend to only eat the icing anyway. The good thing is that it’s quite a rich cake so you can serve a lot of people with small slices meaning only having to bake one cake! xxx

  9. And it was a real treat, though definitely will add extra milk next time. Grand daughter had brilliant time decorating with smarties and pink sprinkles that just ‘happened’ to fall out out of the tub! Only needed small slices as very dense and rich, but much enjoyed by all! 

    • I’m so pleased you all enjoyed both decorating and eating the cake. I have a much lighter choc cake coming soon, perhaps better for a children’s party. Xx Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

  10. Have made this tonight with gluten free flour ( Juvela Mix, so not plain flour) and a teaspoon of Xanthan Gum. Was quite sticky and did add more milk as suggested earlier and it seems to have worked out ok. Will have fun decorating this with my grand daughter tomorrow for her mum’s birthday!

  11. If I wanted to make this, but as a 3 tier cake (20 cm tins) how would I add to the ingredients so that it stretches this far? Or would I completely ruin the concept by having 3 tiers? x

    • I would just x the ingredients by 150% to make another tier as this provided enough for two good sized tiers. Or you could make three smaller tiers witht he same amount of ingredients. Doesn’t ruin the concept at all – all the recipes on here are for playing with! xx

  12. This looks totally delicious :-) those fudgy bits are yummy aren’t they!!! Put some in flapjacks the other day :-) With Linzi question I suggest a extra egg, my answer to converting lots of recipes to G/F but usually works  :-)

  13. Hello! This sounds fab, thanks for sharing. For the tweaking with X gum perhaps I could suggest using buttermilk as a replacement instead of just milk and trial and error on quantity – probably double the  milk recommendation. It’s stickier so might work? Trying this recipe tonight for my 4 year old on Sat. xxx

    • Thank you for sharing this info – I have never baked with it. Worth people know that Ben from the Bake Off is expert with x gum. Might also be worth asking him if anyone needs advice. xxx

    • Really sorry, I don’t have much experience with X gum. I would suggest a little more milk but no expert on this substitution. X Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

  18. This looks divine, Holly. Just one query. Could you make in one tin and cut in half horizontally? Or would it wreck the whole concept? Only asking….It seems to be just the cake I’m looking for….

    • That would work fine. Only thing to watch would be that as it’ll need longer baking the sides may catch a little. Could be worth covering the sides of the tin with paper or foil to protect them – like a Christmas cake. xx

    • Any tin will work, just grease and line well (or spray with magic cake release stuff) – just watch the bake time. Needs to be risen with a toothpick coming out clean. x

      • Hi, I use the fry light sunflower spray – doesn’t impart any flavour (not to me anyway) and is in the cupboard anyway.

  21. Yes chocolate all the way for a birthday cake. That goes for me and my 3 children as well as husband and this sounds absolutely perfect!

  22. Oh my goodness! This looks amazing!
    I’ve decided that I’m moving to Leicester and am going to become your best friend so you can bake cakes for me ;-) (please)

    • I find I get a better texture when using Stork. I know the whole butter/marg debate divides me. It’s a personal opinion so can substitute. Butter for buttercream everytime though obviously.

Comments are closed.

Holly Bell
I’m a mum of 3 boys, a cookbook writer and also a finalist on the 2011 Great British Bake Off. I’ve decided to record the recipes I use, partly to save them somewhere and partly in case someone else might like to use them... [Read more]

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