Edge Of My Plate: Happy Birthday! - Chocolate Mudcake with Honeycomb Buttercream

Happy Birthday! - Chocolate Mudcake with Honeycomb Buttercream

It was my birthday last week. The big 3-0! I had decided to celebrate this with a party. themed "Childhood Heroes". It was great to see everybody putting so much effort into getting dressed up as their favourite childhood character.

Alice in Wonderland, Strawberry Shortcake and a fairy were dancing among popstars and Holiywood heroes like Madonna, Magnum, Crocodile Dundee and Indiana Jones.
I decided to have a cake like we used to get from my mother when we were growing up. Chocolate cake covered in chocolate, decorated with Smarties and Gummibears. For a slightly bigger and more grown-up version I chose to fill the cakes with honeycomb buttercream.

For the cakes I used Planet Cake's recipe with slightly less sugar. Please note I made two different sized cakes. The recipe is for a 21cm diameter cake (7cm high). The ingredients in brackets are for a 25cm diameter tin, about 7.5cm high.

Dark Chocolate Mudcake

160g (290g) unsalted butter

160g (290g) dark chocolate chopped

18g (35g) coffee granules

174g (325g) plain flour

slightly less than 1/2tsp (1/2tsp) bicarbonate of soda

1.5tsp (4tsps) baking powder

35g (70g) real (unsweetened) cocoa powder

335g (575g) caster sugar

4 (5) eggs lightly beaten

5tsps (10tsps) vegetable oil

70ml (130ml) buttermilk

110ml (200ml) water

Preheat oven to 160°C for a fan forced oven. Grease tin and line the base and sides with baking paper so it stands about 2cm over the top.

Put the butter, chocolate and coffee in a saucepan with 200ml of water and stir over low heat until melted then remove from heat.

Sift the flours, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and make well in centre. Add the combined egg, oil and buttermilk. Mix well with a large spoon. Add the chocolate mixture, stir with large spoon until completely combined. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 1 hour 40 minutes. The cake is done when a wooden skewer inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely before removing it from the tin.

Honeycomb Buttercream

500g butter

300g icing sugar

400g honeycomb, smashed

Process the honeycomb in a food processor, set aside. Beat together butter and icing sugar until well combined. Add the honeycomb and mix so it's even distributed.

To fill the cake, cut into three even layers. Spread honeycomb buttercream on the layer, stack with the second cake round, layer with more buttercream and finish off with the last cake round. Coat the chocolate before adding the second cake on top.

Chocolate Coating (make seperate for each cake!)
2x 250g dark cooking chocolate

2x 75g butter

Melt the chocolate and butter together and stir until completely combined. Make the chocolate coating for each cake individually as it will set to a hard consistency.

Spread the melted chocolate on top the cake and smooth down the sides. Decorate with Smarties and Gummibears. Add the second cake on top and proceed in the same manner of layering as you did with the first cake. Top with more chocolate coating and decorations.

The cake keeps for 3 weeks in the fridge, not that I think it would ever last this long! I did bake the cakes a few days before the party though and kept them tightly wrapped in the fridge.

Serve at room temperature.

Cake recipe adapted from Planet Cake.