Simple Chocolate Celebration Cake

This weekend I celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time in my life. It’s not a typical British thing to do, but for my friend Shanni (who comes from across the pond) it’s a calendar must!

I was under orders to make something chocolatey. But I didn’t want to make just any old chocolate cake, oh no. I wanted it to fit the theme!

So using a recipe that I have made hundreds of times, I simply changed up the decoration and piping technique to turn a simple chocolate cake into a Thanksgiving showstopper.

It’s amazing what gold shimmer spray can do! You should totally give this Chocolate Celebration Cake a try. I promise, it’s nowhere near as difficult as it looks.

Got the baking bug and want to learn more? Baking for beginners if for you!

Chocolate Celebration Cake Recipe

Here is what you will need to make a 3 layer 20cm diameter cake.

Ingredients

For the Sponge

160g Unsalted Butter, Room Temp
560g Golden Caster Sugar
400g Plain Flour
100g Cocoa Powder
2 tbsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
480ml Whole Milk, Room Temp
4 Eggs, Room Temp
2 tsp Chocolate Extract (Optional)

For the Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

540g Icing Sugar
100g Cocoa Powder
300g Unsalted Butter, Room Temp
1 tsp Chocolate Extract (Optional)
Splash of Milk

For the Sugar Decorations (To be Made 24 hrs in Advance)

Fondant Icing (In an assortment of ‘Autumn’ colours)
Assorted Leaf Shaped Cutters
Gold Edible Shimmer Spray

Essential Equipment

3 x 20cm Round Loose Bottomed Cake Tins

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have all your ingredients at the same temperature before starting to mix. It really helps them to blend together and dramatically improves the texture of the final cake. So if you have the time – take all those chilled items out the fridge and leave on the side for an hour or two before starting.

Sponge Instructions

Ok! Lightly grease the 3 baking tins & line the bottoms with baking paper.

Preheat your oven to 180°C/Fan 170°C.

In either a stand mixer or a large bowl with an electric hand whisk, beat together the butter, sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt until it forms a light sandy mixture.

Beat the milk, eggs and chocolate extract together in a jug using a fork. Then with the speed on low, gradually add two thirds of the liquid into the dry ingredients. Increase the speed to medium and mix until it’s smooth, thick and shiny.

With the speed on low again, add the remaining third of the liquid – then increase to medium and mix until smooth and shiny.

Divide the mixture evenly between the 3 prepared tins and bake in the lower section of the oven for 30-40 mins. To check if they’re cooked – insert a skewer into the middle. If it comes out clean, it’s cooked. If it has cake batter on it – it needs a little longer.

When cooked, allow to cool in the tins for about 30 minutes. Then take out the tins, peel off the baking paper and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.

Frosting Instructions

Either in a stand mixer or a large glass bowl using an electric hand whisk, beat together the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter until sandy in consistency.

With the speed on low, add in the chocolate extract and small amounts of milk (a little at a time) to loosen the mixture. Remember, you can always add more in but you can’t take it out!

Once you see it turning darker in colour and smoother in texture – increase the speed to medium/high and beat until light and smooth.

Leave to one side, or, if you want – you can make this up to a week in advance and store in an airtight container in the fridge. Simply allow to come to room temperature and give it a good mix before using on your Chocolate Celebration Cake.

Decoration Instructions

There are several ways to tackle this. Either you can buy pre-coloured fondant icing OR you can buy plain white icing and colour it yourself using gel food colours. DO NOT use liquid food colouring as it will make the fondant way to soft to work with. Also remember to add a little colour at a time – again, you can always add more in but you can’t take it out.

Either way, all you need to do is roll out each colour (one at a time) on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar and cut out an assortment of leaf shapes and sizes.

Want to make them curvy shaped like mine? You don’t need to go out and buy loads of fancy, expensive moulds! All you need is a couple of sheets of cardboard, a rolling pin and some blu-tack.

Once you’ve cut out your shapes, simply lay them however you like on your make shift moulds and allow to dry at room temperature for a minimum of 24 hours to ensure they keep their shape.

And that’s it!

Assembly Instructions

If your cakes haven’t baked perfectly even (like mine never do!) carefully slice of the tops off to make each layer flat and the same size.

On a cake board or large serving plate, centrally place the bottom layer. I use this one cut side up to make sure you get a flat foundation.

Load a piping bag with a large round nozzle and fill with some buttercream frosting. Start by piping blobs around the edge.

Continue by piping a spiral within the ‘blobbed’ edge – from the outside in. (Thanks to John Whaite for this Tip!)

Pop the next layer on top, cut side down – see how pretty it looks? No one will ever know it doesn’t look the same in the middle as they’re only going to shovel it in their mouth anyway! Repeat the piping process on this layer.

Then add on your final layer. (Again, cut side down.) This time, we’re going to pipe blobs all over. So, starting from the outside and working your way to the middle, start blobbing!

Now all that remains is to lay your leaf decorations onto your Chocolate Celebration Cake however you like and spray all over with some gold shimmer spray. If your board looks a bit empty like mine did, simply pipe a border of blobs around the bottom of the cake.

I told you this wasn’t as difficult as it looked! I love this Chocolate Celebration Cake recipe as it’s pretty much just a case of chuck it all in, mix it, bake it, done. No faffing around for ages – just pile it all in!

You could very easily adapt the decorations to suit any occasion too. For example, get some green, white and red fondant – cut out Christmas shapes (trees, presents, snowmen etc) and make exactly the same as above, maybe with some silver shimmer spray to add that extra ‘wow’.

Finally, to all you lovely lot in the USA – Happy Thanksgiving for Thursday!