Chocolate Mud and Caramel Easter Cake

This Easter Waitrose are encouraging people to be ‘Good Eggs’.  During the Easter school holidays, Waitrose are asking people to share their Easter photos on social media - from all the delicious food they’re enjoying to fun Easter egg hunts with the kids – using the hashtag #GoodEgg to support Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.

Throughout the initiative, Waitrose will be surprising and delighting lucky participants with Easter gifts, including Heston’s Golden Easter Eggs, hampers, cases of wine, Waitrose vouchers and Waitrose Cookery School vouchers.

Waitrose will also be making a charitable donation to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, as well as delivering chocolate eggs for the children to enjoy at their Easter party.

For ideas, inspiration and recipes, Waitrose have created a dedicated Easter section online to help you plan the perfect Easter and have a Kids Easter ideas page here which has step by step guides to creating your own DIY Easter eggs and other edible Easter treats.

I decided to bake a 4 layer Chocolate Mud and Caramel Easter Cake which my children dubbed the Epic Easter Cake when they saw it after they had arrived home from school and spied the cake on our kitchen counter.

The cake is best served in thin slices as it is very rich and a proper sugar rush.  I was thankful that the weather was good as I sent the kids outside to play after taste testing as it was like rocket fuel as an after school snack.

Chocolate Mud Easter Cake

225g butter, cubed

360g dark chocolate, roughly chopped (I used Green and Blacks)

165g light soft brown sugar

180ml water

150g plain flour

35g self raising flour

2 Tblsp cocoa powder

2 medium free range eggs

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan.  Grease and line a 22cm/9 inch cake tin, ensuring the paper comes 2 inches/5cm above the top edge of the cake tin.

Combine the butter, chocolate, sugar and water in a saucepan over a low heat.  Stir until mixture is smooth.  Cool this mixture until it reaches room temperature.  Mix in the flours, cocoa and eggs.  

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes until cake is cooked and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Cool the cake in the tin for 15 minutes to half an hour before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely.

Split the cake horizontally into 4 layers. Alternate ganache and caramel between layers, finishing with ganache on the top of the cake.

Chocolate Ganache

300g dark chocolate, I used Green and Blacks

200ml double cream

Put the cream in a saucepan over a moderate heat. Heat until almost boiling, remove from the heat and stir through the chocolate until a smooth mixture forms. Leave the ganache to cool until it reaches a spreadable consistency.

Caramel

50g butter or margarine

50g light muscavado sugar

1 x 397g tin condensed milk

Measure the butter and sugar into a pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Add the condensed milk and stir until completely combined.  Bring the mixture to the boil.  As soon as the mixture boils turn the heat right down so the mixture simmers very slowly.  Ensure you stir the mixture continuously.  Heat for about 5 minutes or until the mixture thickens slightly. Pour into a bowl and leave to cool until it is a spreadable consistency.  

I've had feedback from a couple of people who have baked the cake recipe above that the cake didn't rise enough and they couldn't cut it into layers.  I tested the above recipe three times before blogging it and it worked fine for me each time, including for my 12yo's birthday.  In an effort to ensure that everyone who wants to bake a cake like this can do so, here's another chocolate cake recipe which I have baked more than a dozen times that should be fail safe.  

Chocolate Layer Cake

200g self raising flour

50g cocoa powder

125g softened butter

1 tsp vanilla bean paste or 2 tsp vanilla extract

275g caster sugar

2 large free range eggs

160ml lukewarn water

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan.  Grease and line a 22cm/9 inch cake tin, ensuring the paper comes 2 inches/5cm above the top edge of the cake tin.

Put all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat with a stand mixer or electric hand held beaters until mixture is smooth.  Beat for 3 to 5 minutes until the mixture is lighter in colour.  Pour mixture in to prepared cake tin and level the top.  

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes until cake is cooked and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Cool the cake in the tin for 15 minutes to half an hour before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely.

Split the cake horizontally into 4 layers. Alternate ganache and caramel between layers, finishing with ganache on the top of the cake.

** I was compensated for my time and expertise devising this recipe for Waitrose **

9 comments Basics, Cakes, Easter, Sweets, Vegetarian