Multi-layered Smartie Chocolate Cake

Well, I wasn’t actually going to do a blog post on this one I just did it for fun really but I got such a strong reaction from it and people wanting the recipe I just had to!!!

I’d seen pictures of these online and they look amazing ( a lot better than the one I’ve made) but there was no discernible recipe for one. So it was back to the usual drawing board for all the recipes I seem to concoct and make it up as I go along.

I’d given it a bit of thought of how I’d go about it and came up with this recipe. The actual concept is relatively straight forward it was just a lot of faffing about but it turned out all okay so can’t grumble too much. Here’s what you’ll need:

I’ve used ounces because my nan taught me to make cakes using the 4:4:4:2 ratio of everything in ounces and I’ve just stuck with it, this recipe is the same just scaled up a bit:

10oz butter
10oz caster sugar
10oz self raising flour (sifted)
5 eggs
1 1/2 tablespoons of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of salt
5 different food colourings (Red, Blue, Green, Purple and yellow)
150 ml of double cream
200 g of good quality chocolate
175g of icing sugar
Another 75g of butter

If your regular readers of my blog you’ll know I have a stand mixer which I use for anything I can and this was no exception. If you don’t have one an electric whisk is cool or a good old fashioned wooden spoon and elbow grease is the way for you!!

Standard cake batter here, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, add the vanilla extract and add one egg at a time adding a large tablespoon of flour with the last egg. Sift in the flour and fold in until just combined. Easy peasy.

Split the mixture into 5 separate bowls and mix in enough of the food colouring to each of the bowls to create a nice coloured batter.

This is the faffy bit. You’ll need to grease and line 5 cake tins that are all the same size. Now I’ve actually got 5 but only because I make Christmas cakes every year. I’m sure most people won’t but all you’ll have to do is bake whatever you’ve got at a time, wash it out and do the next one. Because there’s only 2 ounce in each cake tin (it will be enough,) they literally take no more than 7-8 mins to bake each layer so it’s not going to take long. Place them on a wire rack till there all completely cool. Be really really gentle when taking them out of the tin. There really thin and delicate so be careful.

While there cooling make the chocolate ganache. Dead simple, get a Bain marine going on the stove, melt the chocolate and pour in the cream. Stir well and leave to cool.

Next the buttercream filling. Cream together the icing sugar and 75g of butter with a couple of drops of vanilla extract and set aside.

Right, construction time. You want to layer them on top of each other starting with blue on the bottom, then purple, green, red and yellow on top, with a slither of buttercream in between each sponge.

When the chocolate ganache is cooled, pour it over the top of the cake and ease it down the sides covering all of the cake. Because its a smartie cake, decorate the too with smarties however you like, get creative and all that. I put chocolate buttons round the sides too.

Last jobs is to cut a massive slab out and see if the layers of coloured sponge have turned out right. And eat it too….. Obviously….