I almost didn’t bake my own Mother a cake for her birthday. How bad is that? I bake cakes almost every day but after tasting 90 varieties of cake and bread at a charity Bake Off on Saturday I just couldn’t muster the energy or in fact, any love for sugar at all. I thought I was ill. More fatigued in hindsight.
To anyone thinking of ever trying 90 mouthfuls of baked delights in one day I’d advise you to have a seat handy. After the first 20 minutes the sugar hits you and your legs begin to wobble, then you feel a little dizzy, then dry mouthed. You get a second wind though. We all tried every cake or bread. A triumph of cake over common sense.
These Mars chocolate cupcakes are for my Mum’s birthday. They are inspired by the Mars Bar fridge cake she taught me to make as a 5 year old. The very fridge cake that won me a Blue Peter badge. You’ll notice that recipe is absent on the blog. I’ll share almost anything with you, but I draw the line at that.
Makes 12
Ingredients:
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 80mls milk (semi or whole)
- 100mls sunflower oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100g plain flour
- 25g ground almonds
- 25g cocoa powder – the good stuff
- 125g caster sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3 Mars Bars
Preheat your oven to gas 5/190C. Make sure the rack is in the centre of the oven. Pop 12 cupcake cases into a 12 hole tray. Separate the eggs, place the yolks into a jug and add the milk, sunflower oil and vanilla extract. Mix with a fork to break up the eggs.
Weigh out the flour, almonds, cocoa powder, caster sugar and baking powder into a bowl. Stir well until combined then give the jug of oil and milk and yolks a good last whisk with the fork and add to the dry mixture. Beat with a metal spoon until well combined – it will be very wet at this point.
Whisk the egg whites by hand/electric mixer until stiff. Add two tablespoons to the mixture you’ve made and beat in with some force to ‘loosen’ the mixture. This makes it easier to fold in the rest of the egg whites. Then simply fold in the rest of the egg whites using a metal spoon and a slicing action – you don’t want to knock air out of the mixture by beating it with force.
Once the mixture is combined and you can’t see any egg white pour the lot back into the jug and then fill your cupcake cases from the jug. The batter is pretty liquid so I find this the best way to get as much batter into the cases as possible. Fill each case to about halfway and then bake for 15 – 20 minutes until risen and a toothpick comes out of the centre of the middle cake clean. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Pop one of the Mars Bars in the fridge at this point.
Once the cakes are cool, cut the remaining two Mars Bars up into about 6 pieces, place in a bowl and microwave in 10 second bursts (mine took 50 seconds) until molten. Then you need to work fast as the toffee re-sets quickly. Take two teaspoons and with one scoop up a teaspoon of molten Mars Bar, with the other shove it off the first spoon onto the cake. Don’t touch the molten Mars Bar! It’s hot and it hurts.
Once every cake is equally covered in molten Mars Bar, remove the other Mars Bar from the fridge, cut into 12 slices and place on top of each cake. Wiggle the slices down a bit to spread the icing a little. Leave to cool and enjoy with milk.
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Holly Bell 
Forgot to add that they were delicious!
Hi Holly, I made these in what I thought was a cupcake tin, but must have been a fairy cake tin as I had enough mixture for 24 fairycakes. I’m now confused between what’s a fairy cake, a cup cake and a muffin! I’ve got a muffin tray and muffin cakes, should I have used these for cupcakes, or are cupcakes another size all together?
Thanks, Amelia.
Fairy is the one that’s tiny – like you made as a kid. Next size up is cupcake. Next after that is a muffin. Asda have all three size cases if you need examples. X Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
Aaaah I see. They did come out tiny, but better for portion control, or maybe not as we’ve all eaten about 5 each! Thank you for enlightening me. x
Just made these with my 3 year old and they are delish!
That’s fab news! Pleased you like them. Xx
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i tried them yesterday and they just turned out PERRRRFECT!!!!! soft,moist and the topping is toooooooo YUMMY! this recipe gained me a lot of appreciation from friends and family. thanks sooo much for sharing :)
Oh I am so pleased you like them! Hurrah for Mars bar cupcakes. xx
Oo, they look really tempting! It’s sounds ideal, never ending cake, but I really don’t think I could have tasted all 90 varieties.
I thought that too but it was quite a feat to taste them all. Hard life eh?! x
I know the Mars Bar fridge cake recipe, passed down from my auntie, what’s it worth to keep quiet? ;-)
Nooooooooooooooooooo! Don’t tell a soul.
*holdslittlefingertocornerofmouth* Hmmm we shall see…
Holly sorry to bother you on the subject of mars bars but i would like to know what was the silver hand blender/mini food procesor that was used in the great brittish bake off. eg to make fruit furees or to grind nuts.
I found it was a waring pro blender but it was only sold without the chopper part!!
Must be so hard to taste and then judge 90cakes and bakes?. I can only compare it to the shop called ‘Lush’. You smell a few of the products and its nice,but after a while all the smells get stuck up your nose and mingle into one horrible sickly snell!!!. Little and often is deffinetly better. x
It was very hard! Lots of sips of water. X
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You are a bad influence, I am craving Mars bars now and I’ve probably not eaten one for over five years!
Goodness me – I can barely go 5 days. I need to reign in the chocolate addiction! X Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
90 cakes to taste, that’s a lot of sugar and must be hard to judge, I don’t envy you. Not suprising you had cake fatigue. Great Mars bar cupcakes, really tasty. GG
Cake fatigue – yes! It seems there is such a thing as too much cake! X Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
Are you trying to make me fat? It’s got nothing to do with me or lack of willpower, but if you will put up recipes for banana chip brownies and mars bar cakes, what do you expect? *Rolls off into the distance wondering where her legs have gone*
Rolling is my preferred way of travelling at the moment! X
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I’m incredibly impressed you managed to try every cake. I’ve certainly experienced that sugar high/crash thanks to Clandestine Cake Club! I love the look of these mars bar cakes
nice way to use a mars bar…so nice indeed i ‘pinned’ it ….dont you just love all the ways you can share on the internet? xoxo