The Copywopydoodah cake: Part 1

Three of my friends are having a joint birthday party this weekend, despite the fact that their birthdays aren't really that close together and spread over two months. They've already shot themselves in the foot by setting the precedent for people to give joint birthday presents. So obviously their birthday present from me will be a cake. But not just any old cake. This one will be three times as big but hopefully won't look like something from 'Pimp That Snack!'. It will be a Choccywoccydoodah cake.

(Oh and it also means I can use up some of the Green and Blacks cocoa I bought from Waitrose about two years ago when they were buy one get one free.)

Usually for birthdays I'll make that foolproof chocolate cake by Nigella although I don't actually know which of her books it's from - it's the only recipe I've ever written down whilst watching one of her shows because, like everyone else, I'm usually transfixed with her lovely bottom and can't bear to take my eyes off the screen for as long as it takes to write down a recipe.

Ingredients for chocolate cake
400g plain flour
250g caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
50g cocoa
2tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt

175g unsalted butter melted and cooled
125ml corn oil
300ml cold water

142ml tub sour cream
3 large eggs
1tsp vanilla extract

Method
Mix dry ingredients until combined. Add the butter, corn oil and water to the dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Briefly whisk the eggs, sour cream and vanilla extract together and then beat into the rest of the mixture. Divide between two loose-bottom cake tins and bake at gas mark 4 for about an hour.

Do this another two times so that you have six cakes in total. You'll also start to realise what it must be like to be a machine in the Mr Kipling factory.

Once you have all six cakes lined up, you can start to sandwich them together. I did this using a chocolate buttercream icing made up of 400g melted dark chocolate, 350g unsalted butter and about 750g icing sugar. And yes, I went through the effort of sieving it. Make sure you fill up all the cracks - you don't want any weak points in this structure.


Now this is the part when you might want to reconsider making the cake. The buttercream icing was just to sandwich the cakes together and not to cover it. To cover the cake I needed something which could hold this skyscraper of a cake together. Something to keep it rigid, yet something runny. Something sticky and something funny. I needed caramel.

Ingredients for chocolate caramel covering
350g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
150g golden syrup
3 397g tins condensed milk
1tsps instant espresso powder/coffee granules
300g dark chocolate

Method
Gently bring all ingredients (except the chocolate) to the boil, stirring constantly. Turn heat down to a simmer and continue stirring until mixture becomes thicker and darker. This should take about 15 minutes. Break chocolate into pieces and stir into the caramel until dissolved. Leave to cool before spreading on the cake. Prepare to be amazed at how easy it is to use.

After cooling the cake in my fridge overnight, I was finally able to add the final layer of solid chocolate. I melted down 1.5kg of Belgian chocolate ...

"!!!!!!!!"

Yes, 1.5kg of chocolate to cover the cake which may seem exciting now but you will probably be so sick of chocolate at this stage that you will want to wash up the bowl instead of licking it clean. I allowed the chocolate to set before painting on the dark and white chocolate stripes to complete that Choccywoccydoodah look which you will hopefully see in Part 2!