I Can't Believe You Made That Cake
Experience the magic of this incredible I Can't Believe You Made That cake that will leave you astonished.
Experience the magic of this incredible I Can't Believe You Made That cake that will leave you astonished.
- 2 tsp baking powder
- vegetable oil or oil spray
- 200 g/7oz butter softened
- 200 g/7oz caster sugar
- 4 free-range eggs
- 140 g/5oz plain flour
- 60 g/2 1/2oz cocoa powder
- pinch salt
- 400 g/14oz plain milk or white chocolate cigarillos (about 75–80 in total)
- 250 g/9oz butter softened
- 500 g/1lb 2oz icing sugar
- 100 g/3 1/2oz good dark chocolate (at least 70 per cen melted and slightly cooled
- fresh flowers for a christening cake
- strawberries or raspberries for the girls
- figs quartered for the boys
- Carbohydrate 0.917886665079369 g
- Cholesterol 75.1013333320078 mg
- Fat 1.89317333304172 g
- Fiber 0 g
- Protein 2.75471333223647 g
- Saturated Fat 0.634930666485072 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (34g)
- Sodium 57.2931999652054 mg
- Sugar 0.917886665079369 g
- Trans Fat 0.300741999985088 g
- Calories 32 calories
Step-by-step
- Preheat the oven to 180/C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 20cm/8in round deep cake tin with baking paper and brush or spray with oil.
- Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until they begin to go pale. Add half of the eggs and half of the flour and mix well. Add the rest of the eggs, flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder and beat for a minute or two until the mixture is uniform. Dollop into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for about 30–40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin.
- Meanwhile, make the buttercream: put the butter and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk together until the mixture goes fluffy. Add the cooled, melted chocolate and whisk for a further two minutes.
- Once the cake is completely cool, remove it from the tin. Carefully cut the top flat with a large serrated knife. (Eat this bit as a chef’s perk!)
- Turn the cake upside down on a 20cm/8in cake board so that the bottom now becomes a nice flat top. Split the cake horizontally and sandwich the top and bottom together with a 1cm/½in layer of buttercream.
- Spread half of the remaining buttercream all over the top and sides of the cake, making it as smooth as possible. Put it in the fridge to set before doing another layer - this makes it much easier to get neat squared-off edges.
- Gently push the cigarillos vertically onto the sides of the cake, positioning them as straight as possible and making sure they touch the bottom.
- The next step is up to you - I can’t tell you the wide-eyed looks you’ll get when you walk into a room holding this finished cake. Serve with a self-satisfied grin.
Butter does the heaviest lifting in this build, acting as both an aerator in the sponge and the structural backbone for the rich chocolate icing that holds exterior garnishes in place. Softening fat to room temperature requires patience because blocks heated past 20 degrees Celsius will break emulsions, resulting in a greasy batter that fails to trap expanding air bubbles from the baking powder. Creaming that softened dairy with caster sugar creates microscopic pockets of air, while rushing the incorporation of eggs can curdle the mixture and yield a dense, rubbery crumb rather than a tender cake. Achieving clean layers relies heavily on chilling the crumb coat in the refrigerator for twenty minutes before applying a second layer of frosting, which locks stray crumbs firmly in place and gives the exterior a flat, adhesive surface for the chocolate cigarillos. Fresh toppings like quartered figs, raspberries, or delicate flowers bring bright, high-moisture elements that contrast sharply with the dry, snap-crisp texture of the processed chocolate cylinders standing guard along the perimeter. Preserved fruits or dried botanicals lack the vibrant cell structure and tart juices needed to cut through the dense sugar load, completely shifting the dynamic from a lively dessert to a cloying one.
