Normally for the kids birthdays I make a packet cake (shhhh) but for an Adult cake, I go the extra mile and actually make it from scratch.  Lets face it, the kids (well, mine) are all about the cake appearance and normally lick the icing off, leaving the cake, so its really not worth it. I have yet to see an adult do this.

For those who don’t know, in my previous life (before kids) I used to manage restaurants. My last hospitality job before I met Mr Point Five was Maitre D at what was Perths best fine dining restaurant. I was quite friendly with the dessert chef there and she gave me her own personal Chocolate Mud Cake recipe. I have used this recipe every year since for our family Christmas Cake as I loathe fruit cake and it is honestly the BEST chocolate mud cake recipe out there; every bit as good as the ones you pay $10 a slice for at a fancy cafe.

Tip; you will need a massive mixing bowl to make it (see photo below) as the batter totally fills a 28cm cake tin. It doesn’t rise as such so don’t panic when your mix comes quite close to the top, it just bakes into molten, dense, moist, chocolatey goodness. Yes, I said moist. It is totally acceptable when describing chocolate cake, just not in a Mills and Boon novel

Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe

Preheat oven to 125-130C

375ml Oil

50g Vinegar

12.5ml Vanilla Essence

400g Brown Sugar

320g Caster Sugar

150g Cocoa Powder

16g Bi Carb

720g Plain Flour

750g water

2 eggs

Put Oil, Vinegar, Vanilla and both Sugars in mixing bowl. Mix well with wooden spoon.

Add Water, Cocoa, Bi-Carb and Flour. Mix well with an electric beater until lump free. Add Eggs. Aerate.

Pour into lined 28cm tin and bake for 2.5-3 hours.

That’s it.

BEST. CAKE. EVER.

If you want to make an icing for it; combine 375g Chocolate, 250ml Cream and 60g Butter in a bowl and melt over hot waterbath. Cool to room temp, stirring occasionally and then put on cake when spreadable and cake is cold.

See what I mean about not rising so much? Normally I would need to cut away the dome-like top on a cake in order to decorate it, but not this one.

Tip: grab a kit-kat and see how many you will need by measuring it around your cake tin before you bake. It would be a disaster if you were one short on party day.

The cake was for a Geologist friend so I got hold of some miners flagging tape to decorate it; less girly than a ribbon for a blokes cake I thought.

Before I put the kit-kats around the edge of the cake,I iced it a little to make them stick to the side before I added the tape. I also used some icing to attach the wafers and the Ferrero.

I didn’t put icing on the top of the cake as I thought it would just be too rich; just poured the choccies on top. If you cant find the mini oreo’s you could use chocolate covered peanuts/almonds, fantails, clinkers or any other chocolates you fancy.

Ta-Dah!

Seriously an easy as cake for a grown-up; took me 45 minutes to decorate this morning.

Here it is half eaten (2 kitkats per slice, easy to cut that way), in all its glory – you can always tell a moist cake by the lack of crumbs when you slice it

If you want to have a gander at some other cakes I have made, you can by clicking here.

Roll on Party Time!!