Chocolate Sweet Shop Cake

A really quick post today as I'm currently on holidays and will be travelling for the next few weeks. I made this for a colleague's son's birthday. Looking back, I've made his birthday cake for the past 3 years (Bin Weevils, Trash Pack, Football Pinata Cake) and they've always been a huge success.  He told his mum that he didn't want a shop bought cake, only a Ros cake! Well how could I disappoint? He initially asked for a playstation 4 cake but my cake decorating skills do not extend that far and I was really pressed for time. Instead I made this chocolate cake and decorated it with Kit Kat fingers, Maltesers, Jelly beans, Smarties and Skittles. He was absolutely delighted with the cake and wrote me a really sweet thank you note which you can see below. 

The cake and buttercream is the same as the Chocolate Easter Cake I made earlier this year and the decorations are as simple as they look here. A short blog holiday for now, see you back in mid-May!

Honey Chocolate Cake

I've been baking quite a bit with Hans Sloane Chocolate beads recently. So far I've made banana, pecan and chocolate waffles, chocolate cookies with ginger or cranberry and a dark chocolate salted caramel oreo pie. Those recipes were made using rich dark chocolate beads or Ecuador 70% chocolate beads. I saw that they have a natural honey with milk chocolate version and was intrigued as I love honey. I absolutely love dark chocolate which is my favourite type of chocolate but I have to say that these natural honey chocolate beads have jumped straight to the top of the favourite list. I've tried honey chocolate products before and often you can't really taste the honey or it tastes artificially sweeter. When you open this pack, the delicious smell of honey hits you immediately. The chocolate is smooth and really tastes like honey. I could have just eaten the whole pack as it is but I had to exert some self control and save it for the recipes. I've also used the natural honey chocolate beads to make a hot chocolate drink and it's absolutely divine.

I started thinking about recipes to showcase the honey chocolate and decided on an old favourite which is Nigella's chocolate honey cake. I've made this recipe quite a few times and it never fails to impress. I have tried different ways of decorating it and I think this is the winner. I put a Kit Kat fence around the cake and added crushed Crunchie bars on top. The bees are my favourite part and they look great sitting in a pool of honeycomb. I also made another cake and decorated it with fresh flowers from the garden and sugar bees.

The cake is light, chocolatey and full of honey flavour. The natural honey chocolate beads adda a really strong honey aroma to the cake and the glaze. The Kit Kats and Crunchie bars add more chocolate and also provides different textures to the cake. The sugar bees are literally the icing on the cake. They look really cute and add a fresh burst of colour to the cake.

 adding honey to the cake mixture 

 adding natural honey chocolate to the cake mixture 

 honey chocolate cake! 

 how cute are the bees in a pool of honeycomb?

 This is the second cake decorated very simply with fresh pansies and sugar bees. 

Recipe adapted very slightly from Nigella 

Makes 1 x 23cm/9 inch round cake
For the cake
100g Hans Sloane Natural Honey Chocolate beads, melted
275g light brown muscovado sugar
225g butter, softened
80ml runny honey
2 large eggs
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
250ml boiling water

For the sticky honey glaze
60ml water
25 ml runny honey
175grams Hans Sloane Natural Honey Chocolate Beads
75g icing sugar, sifted

For the bees
25 grams yellow ready to roll icing
12 flaked almonds

For the decoration

Kit kat

3 crunchie bars

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Grease and line a 23cm/9 inch round springform cake tin. 
• Melt the chocolate in a small bowl over a pan of simmering water. Allow to cool slightly. 
• Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until pale and fluffy.
• Add in the runny honey and mix well. 
• Add in the eggs, one at a time.
• Fold in the melted chocolate, flour, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa powder.
• Finally pour in the boiling water and mix well.
• Pour the cake batter (which will be quite liquid) into the prepared cake tin and bake for an hour. 
• Check the cake after 45 minutes and cover with foil if the top of the cake is brown. 
• Allow the cake to cool completely in the tin on a wire rack. 
• To make the glaze, put the water and honey in a small pan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat. 
• Add the Hans Sloane Natural Honey Chocolate Beads and whisk gently until the chocolate has melted.
• Add in the icing sugar and continue whisking until smooth. 
• To make the bees, divide the yellow icing into 6 even pieces.
• Roll each piece in the palm of your hand into a sausage shape roll that's tapered at one end.
• Use a wooden skewer to paint 2 stripes on each 'bee' with the sticky honey glaze as shown. Add 2 dots in the front for eyes.
• Place 2 almond flakes, one at either end to form the bee's wings. 
• To decorate the cake, place 4 strips of parchment paper on a cake stand to form a square. This is a great tip from Nigella as the icing is quite runny initially and prevents a mess on the cake stand. 
• Place the cooled cake in the centre of the cake stand.
• Pour the sticky honey glaze on top of the cake allowing it to drip down the sides.
• Gently slide out the strips of baking paper so you have a clean cake stand. 
• Cut Kit Kat bars in half and arrange them around the border of the cake the form a fence.
• Crush 3 Crunchie bars and sprinkle on top of the cake.
• Carefully add the bees on top.
• Alternatively decorate with some fresh pansies and sugar bees. 
• (Note - the sticky honey glaze is very sticky and a little runny so make sure you allow plenty of time for it to set before serving) 

Disclaimer: I was sent Hans Sloane chocolate beads for review purposes. A positive review was not required and all opinions are my own. This is not a sponsored post. 

Chocolate Candy Cake

This is a choc-a-holic's dream cake. It's a 2 layer chocolate sour cream cake covered with chocolate ganache with a layer of chocolate ganache in the middle. It is surrounded by Kit Kat's and topped with Maltesers and peanut M&M's. The best part is that it is designed to look as if the chocolates are pouring down on to the cake. The inspiration was actually a challenge by my friend who saw it on the internet and challenged me to make a similar cake. It was a work colleague's leaving do and it's getting close to Halloween so I decided to give it a go. 

I had fun constructing this cake even though it was a little frustrating at times. I used drinking straws to suspend the chocolate wrappers but you can also use long lollipop sticks. I used chocolate ganache as my 'glue' to stick the sweets to the straw and to hold the wrappers in place. The malteser half was very easy to build in comparison to the peanut M&M's. I think they are too heavy and too awkwardly shaped. I'll try regular M&M's next time or Mint Aero's. 

Everyone was really impressed with the cake, myself included! It was tricky to slice as the maltesers and M&M's scattered everywhere so make sure you are prepared. The cake was rich and chocolatey and the chocolate ganache was absolutely divine. 

I'm entering this to We Should Cocoa hosted by Hannah from Honey & Dough on behalf of Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog. The theme this month is Halloween and this would be perfect for a Halloween party. It's not scary but it's definitely very chocolatey and perfect for a celebration. 

For a similar reason, I am also entering it to Let's Cook for Halloween hosted by Nayna from Simply Food.

It's also going to Bake of the Week hosted by Helen from Casa Castello. 

Finally to Cook Blog Share hosted by Lucy from Supergolden Bakes.

 I ended up using 32 Kit Kat fingers, 500g peanut M&M's, 360g Maltesers and 660g of chocolate for this recipe! 

 cook chocolate, butter and cocoa powder with some water

 whisk chocolate mixture into the flour mixture

 add in the eggs

 whisk in the sour cream

 sandwich and cover with chocolate ganache - don't worry if it's messy, it will all be covered

 arrange the Kit Kat fingers around the outside leaving a gap in the front 

 place 2 drinking straws and adjust the height if needed (I had to push my straws in as it would not fit into my cake box otherwise) 

 Building up the cake 

 almost there...

 Looking good

It survived overnight! 

For the cake 

250g plain four

45g cocoa powder
60g dark chocolate pieces
225g butter
1 cup water
300g sugar
2 eggs
1.5 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 cup water
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the chocolate ganache

300mls double cream

600g dark chocolate 

For the decorations

32 Kit Kat fingers

360g Maltesers

500g Peanut M&M's

2 drinking straws

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Grease and line 2 sandwich tins. 
• Place the butter, cocoa powder, chocolate and water to cook over a medium heat.
• In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, bicarbonate of soda and sugar together.
• Carefully add half the melted chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk. 
• Add the eggs one at a time and continue whisking. 
• Then add the sour cream and vanilla extract.
• Divide the batter between the two cake tins (I weigh mine to make sure that it's even) and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes or until cooked and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow the cake to cool completely before decorating. 
• Make the chocolate ganache by heating the double cream in a small pot.
• Once it's almost boiling, remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate.
• Continue stirring until the chocolate has melted.
• Whisk the mixture until smooth and glossy. 
• Allow it to set at room temperature before using. If it starts getting solid then just warm it in the microwave to the desired consistency.
• Decorate the cake as shown above.