Easter Chocolate Nest Cake

After my last post, I was hoping to have loads of new stuff up, however, now I have the time to write posts, the battery on my laptop decided to completely die. Therefore, all the pictures I had taken are lost for now and I haven't been able to write about the things I really want to, which is so frustrating and just typical! I'm down in Exeter now for Easter so am borrowing Matt's laptop and am having to take new photos.

This week I decided to get back to baking, at Uni I don't have the time or appliances, so it has been really nice getting back to doing something I really enjoy. I decided on a chocolate cake because everyone loves chocolate and decided to put an Easter twist on it as something to take to Exeter. It is quite simple but effective and is a good one to make with kids. The nest is made of shredded wheat and chocolate so if you have any left over you can make mini nest cakes too.

Ingredients

* 150g caster sugar

* 150g margarine

* 3 eggs

* 110g self raising flour

* 40g cocoa powder

For the icing:

* 125g unsalted butter

* 2 tablespoons milk

* 200g icing sugar

* 50g cocoa powder

For the nest:

* 3 weetabix biscuits

* Nob of butter

* 100g dark chocolate

* 100g milk chocolate

* 1 tablespoon golden syrup

* 1 pack of Mini eggs

Method

1. Grease and line two sandwich tins and preheat the oven to 190 degrees (fan).

2. Cream together the margarine and caster sugar until pale and fluffy.

3. Sift together the flour and cocoa powder into a bowl. Add an egg at a time to the margarine and caster sugar mix. In between each egg, add a little of the flour into the mixture to stop it from curdling.

4. Mix in the rest of the flour and cocoa powder.

5. Half the mixture evenly into the two tins and smooth the surface with the back of a spoon. Cook for 15-20 minutes until light and springy to the touch.

6. Leave to cool in the tins for around ten minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack until completely cool.

7. Now is time to make the icing. Make sure your butter is cut into small cubes and softened, you can do this  with a quick blast in the microwave if you need to. Sieve in the icing sugar and cocoa powder a little at a time while beating the mixture, then add the milk and beat this in too.

8. Once really smooth and soft, using a palette knife spread half the icing onto one half of the cake. Sandwich the other half on top and smooth the rest of the icing on top.

9. Snap or cut the chocolate into small pieces and melt over a ban marie or in the microwave with the butter until smooth and glossy. You can use just milk chocolate or dark chocolate if you prefer but I like a mix of both.

10. Crumble around 3 biscuits of shredded wheat into the chocolate mixture and stir in thoroughly so all of it is covered. Add in the golden syrup and mix it in thoroughly.

11. Trace around one of the sandwich tins to get an idea of how big your nest should be. Arrange the shredded wheat and chocolate mixture inside this stencil, leaving a hollow in the middle. It doesn't have to be exact or perfect as it will look more realistic. 

12. Once you have finished this, place into the fridge to chill for a few hours.

13. Once chilled, you can add the nest to the top of the cake. Fill in the middle with mini eggs and you are done!

As a word of advice I would cut the nest into pieces and then slice the cake separately as the nest can be pretty tough to cut! There is only one slice left after being down in Exeter for two days so this recipe has gone down pretty well. Let me know if you make this over Easter weekend by tweeting or instagramming me (lilmisslifestyle) :) Hope you all have a lovely weekend and get lots of chocolate! xxx