For the past, for years I have baked this very cake for my birthday. It’s a tradition. We also make a version at Easter too, of course! I just love Easter Chocolate and this year I had an Easter-themed tea party. It was as every bit of amazing as it sounds. We ate carrot cake, mini eggs, egg sandwiches, crips and epic mini egg cookies. It was amazing. We had bunny plates from Meri Meri and carrot napkins too. We also had copious amounts of tea, from a teapot of course!! It was such a lovely way to spend a lockdown birthday. We went all out and it was so special.
In years gone by I have cheated at this cake and used a Betty Crocker cake mix, while not as good as homemade it is still rather tasty, instead which make things easier. But let’s face it we are here for the chocolate on top right? Ohhhh it’s so good. This year the cake had an upgrade so I thought a brand new blog post was essential. You have to make it because honestly, it’s insanely good. Topped with Creme Eggs, Mini Eggs, Kinder Eggs and Malteaser bunnies it truly is the ultimate Easter cake!!
Ultimate Easter Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
For the cake
- 300 g self raising flour, sieved
- 300 g caster sugar
- 40 g cocoa powder
- 250 g butter, softened
- 3 free range eggs
- 7 tbsp milk
- 7 tbsp water
For the buttercream
- 250 g butter, softened
- 450 g icing sugar, sieved
- 50 g cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp milk
For the ganache
- 200 ml double cream
- 200 g milk chocolate
For decoration
- 2 malteaser bunnies
- 3 creme eggs, halved
- 1 bag mini eggs
- 2 kinder eggs, halved
Instructions
For the Cake
- 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. Mix until well combined.
- 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 using a sharp knife. This ensures they stack nicely.
For the buttercream
- 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.
For the ganache
- 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 takes around 30 minutes to an hour. If you find your ganache isn't setting add in a little icing sugar to help it along.
- 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.
- Enjoy!!
