On Saturday night I threw a mini surprise party for my friend Jane, whose birthday last month was a bit of a fizzer—one that was topped off by a lack of cake.
“A party without cake is just a meeting.”
—Julia Child—
What made the lack of cake even sadder was the fact that Jane is the beauty and brains behind Miss Jane’s Cakes and yet there wasn’t even a single cupcake to celebrate HER.
It just wouldn’t do.
So, on Saturday afternoon, as Jane baked and decorated another marvellous creation at her house, I set about creating my own simple but impressive looking (as per my bucket list) masterpiece for her.
While you can make your cake from scratch, I opted to use a decadent packet mix because I was short on time, but I did make the icing myself because I needed enough to cover both the top and sides of the cake.
The cake
1 packet cake mix
3 medium-sized packets of m&ms (you know the ones you’re meant to share with friends but really you just eat them yourself *cough*… anyway, I think they’re about 200g each)
2 packets of Cadbury Finger biscuits
For the icing, I used this simple four-ingredient recipe from Taste.com, although I doubled each ingredient so I’d have enough to go around, and a little extra so I could lick the bowl!
Chocolate icing
1 cup of icing mixture
2 tbsp cocoa powder (I used half Premium dutch cocoa powder and half Cadbury Bournville Cocoa powder)
2 tbsp soft butter or margarine
1 tbsp milk
I also only made a single layered cake (using a 21cm pan) however you can go for a double layer which would probably be more suitable if you’re using Kit-Kats as your fencing.
As there was still a bit of a drop between my cake and the top of the Cadbury fingers I used, I just added more icing across the top of the cake (because you can never really have too much chocolate icing…).
Once the cake was cool and had been iced, it was time to decorate and it really couldn’t be simpler: simply press either Kit-Kats or Cadbury chocolate finger biscuits into the sides of the cake to form a fence.
Then cover the top of the iced cake with the chocolate, lollies or fruit of your choice.
I’ve seen these cakes done with fresh strawberries and also Malteasers. Both look amazing, however I opted for the standard chocolate m&ms because we all love them (and Tamie is allergic to egg so she could only eat the decoration!), as well as a smattering of the new raspberry flavour (LOVE!).
To finish it off I wrapped it all up in a pink ribbon making it a gift and a cake all rolled into one delicious and decadent parcel!
The cake cut easily although you should be prepared for a little m&m avalanche.
To add a bit of festive flair for the event, I printed off this gorgeous printable alphabet bunting (complete with love heart shaped spacer) from the blog Ruffled to hang above the table.
The cake was a huge hit but not as much as the surprise party itself—and the friends hiding behind my kitchen counter!
Happy birthday Jane! x
