The BEST Chocolate Cake in the World...Ever

Soooo about a year ago I went through a malt phase and baked all things malt and got a bit sick of it. But after a little break I got over it and I am now back on that malty goodness. Especially after making this recipe. *I warn you* this chocolate malt cake is possibly the scrummiest thing you'll ever eat and could quite possibly make every other cake you eat after it, taste rubbish.

Where to start! There are quite a lot of stages to this recipe so I'm not going to write it all out. My friend Jo did most of mixing and weighing as I read out the instructions (team work makes the dream cake work). First you have to make a fudge sauce. Every cake that begins with making a fudge sauce has to be good.

You then make the 3 chocolate sponge layers. 

Once they're cooked you pour the fudge sauce over them whilst still warm - oh yes!

Next you make the AMAZING malt frosting. 

Look at it!! It's so yum. It's a mixture of cream cheese, double cream, butter, icing sugar and choc horlicks powder. Sporting the bowl of frosting is the lovely Jo. 

OK, so the next step was stacking and icing the cake and *ahem*, this is where things went a bit wrong. Whilst attempting to stack the 3 layers, the top cake split a bit, and then when I smothered it with super thick luscious frosting the whole cake completely split in half making an amazing mess. This is the only photo I managed to take before it happened.

Despite the cake crash, it was still eaten up and enjoyed. It's so moist and the fudge sauce makes it ever moister and the frosting is ridiculous and you're supposed to put malteasers in it too which I'm sure makes it (if possible) even more amazing. Anyway, I had a lot of frosting left over at the end so naturally, I made it into cupcakes. 

Oh, and it's a Hummingbird recipe in case you were wondering where you could find the recipe for the best chocolate cake in the world ever.

Challenge #7 Carrot Cake

So the next recipe in Mary Berry's Baking Bible is (drum roll please)...Carrot Cake! If you know me, you'll know I'm not a fan of carrots in cake. Don't get me wrong, I like unusual combinations and textures but the carrot does not do it for me. But I trust Mary Berry so we'll see if she converts me...

So step one was very easy - bung all the ingredients into a bowl and mix (low maintenance - I like it!). It definitely wins the award for ugliest batter ever. 

The recipe included eggs, walnuts, carrots (obviously), muscavado sugar, flour, sunflower oil and....banana! 

So after whizzing it together you simply put it in the oven for about an hour and ta daaaaa...we have a carrot cake!

Then it was time to top it with cream cheese icing, decorate with walnut halves and share with friends and a cup of tea. 

And what did I think? I think it was a glorified banana cake but not as nice. Mary Berry let me down. It was OK but quite filling and dense. The last piece is still in my fridge and I'm not dreaming of eating it any time soon. So not a carrot cake convert yet but the cream cheese icing was gorgeous mmm.