Melissa says “I made this cake for my partners 20th Birthday last month. He absolutely loooves anything chocolate! It was a lot of fun to make and it was delicious!
I got the idea here
but adapted my recipe from here
- Chocolate Cake
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups Brown sugar
- ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon coffee powder
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup boiling water
- Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by spraying with baking spray or buttering and lightly flouring.
- Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk through to combine or, using your paddle attachment, stir through flour mixture until combined well.
- Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed and carefully add boiling water to the cake batter. Beat on high speed for about 1 minute to add air to the batter.
- Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.
(I cooked the cakes the night before and let them completely cool before stacking and icing.)
And – of course – instead of plain chocolate icing I made a Nutella Frosting !
1 cup unsalted butter, softened (I used 1/2 c – 3/4 c)
3½ – 4 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
½ cup Nutella (give or take, depending on preferred sweetness)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons half-and-half, heavy cream or whole milk
pinch of salt
Cream together butter and ½ cup of confectioner’s sugar at a time. After each cup of sugar has been added, add Nutella 1 tablespoon at a time, then add vanilla and then beat on high for about 20 seconds to lighten the frosting.
Add half-and-half, one tablespoon at a time until the buttercream has reached a consistency where it will hold it’s shape. Add pinch of salt and whip on high for a final 20 seconds.
Use immediately or cover and refrigerate up to three days. To use once refrigerated, slowly allow to reach room temperature and then beat on low speed until the buttercream is smooth before using.
(There was plenty to ice the whole cake and put in between the layers)
For the decorations I used 4 family sized blocks of Kitkats and a family sized back of M&M’s and half a bag of Maltesers
My little secret was that for the top layer of the cake I used a ring cake pan and stashed some maltesers in there so my partner got a surprise :).”
There are soo many different varieties of this cake – different flavours, icing/frostings, chocolate fingers, selected colours of m&m’s, oreos, and thrre list goes on!
After decorating I put in the fridge for a couple of hours just to allow the frosting to harden a little otherwise the Kitkats were going to start falling off. – Don’t leave it for too long though otherwise the M&M’s go a bit hard making it quite hard to cut.
Hope you enjoy!