The Easter Chocolate Cake

You may be thinking that I'm a little early for Easter, and while that's true, I didn't actually bake this cake for Easter. Nope today is my 24th Birthday. I bet you thought I was older than that didn't you? Doesn't help the fact I'm a granny at heart. 

I made my own birthday cake yesterday because no one loves me enough to make me one. Haha. I joke. I whipped this up and it didn't take that long really. And it's exactly how I wanted it to be. 

The cake is my go to recipe. A moist (I can not stand that word!) sponge that's not too rich but chocolately enough. Then layers of chocolate buttercream. Coated in a chocolate buttercream crumb coat and then another layer of buttercream for good luck. Oh and the chocolate ganache on top, lots of Easter chocolate and a drizzle of white chocolate icing. It's definitely not healthy and I can not be responsible for any lbs you put on with eating this cake but oh my it's going to taste so good!

Easter chocolate is so much better than Christmas chocolate. Creme Eggs. Mini Eggs and I had to include a Kinder Egg too as Edith loves them. She loves the cake, she kept trying to steal mini eggs of the top then when my husband got home from work he stole a mini egg. That's not cool (I know you're reading this post and I want everyone to know the awful crime you committed, you can't just steal mini eggs of someones birthday cake before their birthday!). Haha. 

Anyway you're here for the cake so here's the recipe you need:

The Easter Chocolate Cake

- Serves 12 - 

For the cake:

300g self raising flour, sieved

300g caster sugar

40g cocoa powder, sieved 

250g butter

3 free range eggs

7 tbsp milk

7 tbsp water

For the buttercream:

250g butter

450g icing sugar

50g cocoa powder

1 tbsp whole milk

For the ganache:

200ml double cream

100g milk chocolate

For decoration:

3 Creme Eggs

1 Kinder Egg

1 91g bag of mini eggs

100g white chocolate, half broken into shards, half melted

 Pre-heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. 

 Grease 3 20cm sandwich tins and line. Don't use a loose bottomed tin as the mixture will run out.

 In a bowl combine flour, sugar, salt and cocoa. 

Rub in the butter until breadcrumbs form. 

 Beat the eggs with the milk and add to the dry ingredients. 

Place the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

Leave to cool completely. 

Once the cake is completely cool level the cakes off.

Make up your chocolate buttercream by combing all the ingredients and whisking with an electric whisk.

Using half of the total buttercream, pipe onto each layer of cake to make the filling, stacking the next cake on top. 

Using a quarter of the remaining buttercream ,spread over the top of the cake and down the sides. Do this sparingly as it's only the crumb coat it should be no more than 1cm thick. 

Place into the fridge for 15-30 minutes to harden.

Once the buttercream is set remove from the fridge and apply the final layer of buttercream make this as neat as possible. I find a plastic cake scraper is the best for this. 

Place back into the fridge for a further 30 minutes.

Whilst waiting for the buttercream to set make up the ganache - Heat the cream in a saucepan, do not bring to the boil. Once hot pour over the chopped chocolate. Leave for 30 seconds then stir until the chocolate has melted. Leave to thicken, this take around 30 minutes to an hour.

Once the ganache has thickened, take the cake out of the fridge and pour over the top. It should set pretty instantly as the cake will be cold.

Quickly, but carefully place on all of your Easter chocolate. There's no specific way to arrange them just put them where you fancy. 

Drizzle over the melted white chocolate and then place back into the fridge for a final half an hour to set.

Enjoy!