What do you do with 15kg of chocolate? Apart from eat it, give it away, eat some more, hide it so you don’t eat it, or share it with the dog, the best thing to do is transform it into something else. This way chomping down copious amount of chocolate is justified. Hey, it’s not chocolate I’m eating, its chocolate cake and its HOMEMADE, so much better for you.
The scenario above is not made up. Yes, Alex and I were once the owners of 15kg of rejected Cadbury chocolate. 5kg of picnics, 5kg of boost bars and 5kg of crunchies to be exact. While we thought we were very clever at the time ( “hey we can get really cheap chocolate, what flavours do you want? You cant ask me to choose, get them all!” was how our conversation went)…unfortunately we could only stomach so much before we would get to the point of needed to be boosted out of the house having almost eaten half the weight of a small child in chocolate
Of course we could not waste the chocolate so we decided to get creative and combine our favourite bar, the crunchie bar, into a delicious cake. (Ok I admit now that I could have chosen a favourite flavour and ended up with only 5kg of chocolate) .
The idea of the cake was to combine the flavours of honeycomb and chocolate. After brainstorming a few ideas we decided that a chocolate cake, with a buttery icing with crunchie crushed through it in the middle, chocolate ganache on the outside and crunchie crumbled on top would meld together into a delicious representation of a crunchie bar.
And let me tell you it was delicious. I used this chocolate cake recipe from one of our favourite blogs, raspberri cupcakes. The recipe has been taken from David Lebovitz’s devil’s food cake recipe. The cake itself was made with cake flour and cocoa so it has a light fluffy texture without being too rich. This meant that the icings did not make the cake too overly sweet.
While the crunchie bars paired fabulously with the chocolate cake, the icing in the middle could also be easily adapted to use any other chocolate bar. Just an idea if you ever have 15kg of chocolate lying around….
- 9 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1½ cups cake flour (not self-rising)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 115 g (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1½ cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup whole or low-fat milk
- 125g butter softened
- 1½ cups icing sugar
- 2 tablespoons of milk
- crushed crunchie bars (quantity is up to you)
- ½ cups (375ml) single or pouring cream
- 340g finely chopped dark chocolate
- Adjust the oven rack to the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Butter two 22 cm springfrom cake pans (9″ x 2″) and line the bottoms with baking paper.
- Sift together the cocoa powder, cake flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl.
- In the bowl of a standing electric mixer, or with hand held beaters, beat together the butter and sugar about 5 minutes until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. (If using a standing electric mixer, stop the mixer as necessary to scrape down the sides to be sure everything is getting mixed in.)
- Mix together the water and milk. Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, then add the coffee and milk. Finally stir in the other half of the dry ingredients.
- Divide the batter into the two prepared cake pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Coolin the tin for 5-10 and then invert onto a wire rack to cool completly before icing.
- Beat the butter with an electric mixer until pale and creamy
- Add half the icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of the milk
- Beat until incorporated and smooth
- Repeat with remaining butter and milk
- Stir through the crunchie pieces
- Place the cream in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to the boilRemove from heat and add the chocolate/ Allow to melt slightly and then stir until it is glossy and smoth.
- set aside to cool to a spreadable consistency.
Yes! Yes! A thousand times, Yes! Thank you. I will absolutely be making this. Maybe…today!
Coffee???
Half way through making this and discover the cake needs coffee- not listed in the ingredients!!
Not a problem- I’ll make it up and I’m sure it will all be delicious but I thought I’d let you know. I’m going to use a shot of espresso to make sure it’s nice and bitter.
Thanks for the recipe- it’s making smile before I’ve tasted it!
Hi Nathan
Apologies coffee was in the original recipe but we omitted it and used 1/2 cups of water. You can definitely use the coffee though! Let’s us know how it goes:)
Rani
This is a beautiful looking cake! I’m about to try the recipe out for my boyfriends birthday, but there’s one thing confusing me. Step 5 says to add coffee but there is no coffee in the ingredient list– is there coffee in the recipe, and if so how much and in what form? Oh, one more thing! is double cream/ pouring cream the same as half-and-half in the US?
Thanks so much!!
Hi Sarah
Thanks for your comment. The coffee is in the original recipe but we decided to omit it and replace with 1/2 cup water. If you like coffee give it a try it may give the cake a richer flavour. Pouring cream is cream that has a fat content of 35%. From what I read half and half has a lower fat content than this so you may not get the same result. If you can’t find pouring cream or cream with 35% fat, use one that has a higher fat content that 35% rather than less. Hope that helps and I hope your boyfriend enjoys the cake!
Rani
You have mistakes in this recipe. There is no mention of coffee in your ingredients but then you instruct us to “then add the coffee and milk” to the cake mixture. Also, for the ganache you say 1/2 cup (375ml) of cream. Do you mean 1/2 cup or 1 and 1/2 cups?
Hi Amanda
See my comment to Sarah. It is also meant to be 1 and 1/2 cups cream.
Rani