Chocolate Fudge Cake With a Choice of Frostings

A delicious chocolate fudge cake suitable for birthdays, afternoon tea or any other celebratory occasion. Sandwich and top it with a scrumptious chocolate cream cheese icing. Or smother it with a decadent chocolate ganache frosting instead.

First of all I’d like to wish you all a very Happy Easter. The chocolate fudge cake with chocolate cream cheese icing you can see here is destined for Easter tea with my mother and some friends later today. It’s a good one.

I also have an easy and fun Easter competition for all baking enthusiasts. The prize is the Mary Berry Collection afternoon tea set that you can see in this post, plus a possible added bonus. Read on.

The Great British Bake Off

The Great British Bake Off has become a bit of an institution over the last few years. I haven’t missed an episode. Sadly, it’s moving away from the BBC and I’m still feeling outraged by the turn of events. I will miss it. The grand dame of baking, Mary Berry, who is synonymous with the show, is thankfully remaining loyal to the Beeb and will not be moving with it. Neither will Mel or Sue.

On to happier subjects. I’m really pleased with this elegant Mary Berry Homeware Collection from Meld Home. I’ve rather fallen for the cute grey goose. The set arrived just in time for me to use it for my Easter chocolate fudge cake.

If you like it too, scroll down to the bottom of this post to find out how you might win your own set. You do not need to be a blogger to enter. I will be shortlisting my favourites, then Mary herself will  judge the winner. She will also be picking an overall winner from the five participating blogs; that lucky person will get a signed copy of one of her books. Fingers crossed it will be one of you who wins.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

So, to my Easter chocolate fudge cake. It’s dark, fudgy and delicious. The cake is fairly easy to make and is an ideal bake for any occasion. Stick some candles in, smother it in chocolate shavings or do as I’ve done here and pile a few mini Easter eggs on top. Job done.

To give this cake its special fudgy yumminess, I use the usual suspects, but also include ground almonds, yoghurt and a little golden syrup.

I grind my own almonds for this chocolate fudge cake. If you have a blender or coffee grinder, it’s very easy to do. And freshly ground almonds are a bit of a game changer. They won’t be as fine as the bought stuff, but they add a bit of texture and the flavour is so much better.

The cake is prepared using the creaming method. This basically means you start by beating the butter and sugar together. Once these are thoroughly combined and are light and fluffy in texture, beat in golden syrup, followed by the eggs. Then you mix in the flour, followed by the yoghurt and ground almonds.

This isn’t the easiest or quickest way to make cakes, but it’s the most common as it produces light and moist sponges with a good texture.

Once you’ve made the batter, divide it between two round baking pans and bake. Just make sure you know your pans. If they’re silicone, which mine are, you can ladle the batter straight in. If you’re using tin ones, however, it’s best to line them with baking paper first. This ensures they won’t stick.

Then use one of the two frosting recipes to fill and decorate it.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

The chocolate cream cheese icing is super scrumptious. Whenever I make it, I have to try incredibly hard not to wolf it down before ever it gets on the cake.

I used a bar of very dark chocolate, but you can use a lighter version if you prefer.

Chocolate Ganache Frosting

As well as the chocolate cream cheese icing, I’ve also filled and frosted this chocolate fudge cake with a chocolate ganache frosting. Again, I’ve used dark chocolate, but if you prefer milk, by all means use that.

The ganache has a melt in the mouth texture and is darkly chocolatey. It also tastes slightly fudgey due to the brown sugar, so it works particularly well with the cake.

I’ve given this as an alternative option in the recipe, below. There’s enough chocolate ganache frosting to fill the cake generously and cover the top and sides.

The cake you see above proved to be a great hit at a friend’s impromptu birthday party. We’d ventured out on a cold February day and enjoyed a lovely, if very brisk walk along the river Fowey.

Other Chocolate Cakes You Might Like

• Celebratory vegan chocolate cake
• Chilli chocolate cake with apricot curd buttercream
• Eton Mess chocolate cake
• Rhubarb & orange chocolate cake
• Strawberry chocolate heart cake
• Triple chocolate cake

Keep in Touch

If you’d like more layer cake recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.

And for more Easter baking inspiration take a look at my Easter recipes.

Choclette x

Chocolate Fudge Cake. PIN IT

Now, ready steady, baaaaaaaaaake!

I’m adding my chocolate fudge cake to Bake of the Week over with Helen at Casa Costello. If you’re into baking, this is definitely worth a shufti.

Mary Berry Homeware Competition

How to Enter

1. Please link up a photo of your Easter bake in the comments below or better still add your picture to this Tin and Thyme Facebook page post. A title would be useful too.
2. In addition, if you post a photo on Twitter, FB or Instagram, tag me and use the hashtag #maryseasterbakes, I will endeavour to retweet or like, as appropriate.

The Prize

• 4 x cake forks
• 4 x cake plates
• cake stand
• cake slice
• 2 x mugs
• the overall winner from the five blogs will also receive a signed book from Mary

 The competition T&Cs

• Open to UK residents only.
• The competition will run from 15th April until the 2nd May 2017. Mary will be judging the week beginning 8th May.
• Mary will judge the finalists, and choose a winner from each blog that is hosting this competition and an overall winner for the signed book.
• Winner will need to supply their address 

11 May 2017 – Winner Alert

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition. We had 33 entries in total. Congratulations go to Emma Locker who Mary picked out as the winner of my blog competition. This is what Mary had to say about her cake – “Emma’s Chocolate Easter Nest Cake is very eye catching. She has created a lovely deep cake with decoration that shows really creative ideas. Well done Emma!”

Disclosure: I was sent the Mary Berry Homeware Collection for the purposes of this competition. I was not asked to write a positive review and as always, all opinions are my own. Thank you for your support of the brands and organisations that help to keep Tin and Thyme blithe and blogging.