Last minute cake advice needed please

[Coffeeanddarkchoc]

DS is 8 tomorrow and I had a cake ordered for him. Unfortunately the lady has had to cancel my order as she has COVID, so I'm now going to try to make one

I am not a baker at all. I can cook dinners but don't have the patience to bake.

Please help me with a simple chocolate sponge recipe that I then plan to cover in chocolate fingers and m&ms to hide the imperfections. (I'm sure there will be many).

Should I make the sponge today, or would it be best to make it in the morning?

I've taken a half day from work to get ingredients/possibly start baking.

Hes had a tough time over the last 6 weeks so I really want to do the best I can for him and make something edible.

Just go and buy a cake.

Why bother baking a cake if it's not your thing? Just buy a supermarket cake and decorate it. If you really want to bake, Betty Crocker and some ready made icing. Done deal.

Hi OP,
I'm a baker. Feel free to PM me if you need any help. I have plenty of foolproof recipes and decoration ideas that can be done quickly if needed

@roadwarrior

Why bother baking a cake if it's not your thing? Just buy a supermarket cake and decorate it. If you really want to bake, Betty Crocker and some ready made icing. Done deal.

This! The Betty crockers are really Good and then you're idea of decorating with fingers and sweets is excellent. I'm sure he will love whatever you give him.

Your son will not feel the love in you making this yourself. He will feel the love when you give it to him. Go and buy a M and S cake. Then decorate however you want. Then you'll spend the day before his birthday making everything nice instead of stressing.

Or, post on your local Facebook and you'll likely have one delivered in the morning

Whereabouts are you OP?

In the, I grant you unlikely, every you are local to me I'll happily make one for you

I'm a fully registered cake maker, insured etc.

@minipie

If you’re really not a baker then I would say reduce your stress by buying a supermarket chocolate cake and adding decorations.

If you want to bake then www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/naughty-chocolate-fudge-cake this recipe gets lots of good reviews although I haven’t tried it myself

I really rate this cake recipe, I’ve made it lots of times and always turns out great.

If you’re coating the cake in buttercream and putting chocolate finger biscuits around the sides standing up you’ll need 2.5 packets of biscuits for a 20cm cake. Yes I’ve had to dash out to buy more biscuits mid decorating.

My fail-safe recipe came from my Nana. It’s 4,4,4, 2.

4oz each of self-raising flour, sugar and butter. 2 eggs. (You can add no more than 1tsp of baking powder if you want). Add 1 tsp vanilla essence. You can add a little bit of milk if it isn’t “a soft dropping consistency”!

If you want chocolate cake, substitute 1 oz of flour for 1 oz of cocoa.

Mix it all together.
Divide into 2 x 7” round cake tins. Bake at 180 for about 20 minutes. Cake is done when springy on top or a knife comes out clean, if you jab it.

Leave to cool properly.

If you want a bigger cake, scale up.

It never goes wrong

If you want to make it really easy, I find the betty crocker chocolate fudge cake mix is dead easy, and has never gone wrong. Need 2 cake tins - 8 inch (20cm) ones. And make sure you have greaseproof paper to line the tin. I tend to just use hand whisk and gets enough air into the mix. I put strawberry or raspberry jam in the middle, and use the betty crocker choc fudge icing on top / sides as required. Might be better to make cake today, put together with jam once cooled, then put in airtight container and decorate tomorrow. You also have time to make another or buy one tomorrow if there are any probs. Good luck.

Meant the devil's food cake mix.

My top tip if you're making your own buttercream — don't use cocoa powder to flavour it. Use drinking chocolate powder, and add a little bit of instant coffee dissolved in the smallest amount of boiling water you can manage.

The recipe WeAreTheHeroes posted is perfect.

If you're a novice baker, tips I would add:

If you can, buy cake tins that are non-stick and springform (so that the base comes away by itself).

Even if the cake tins are non-stick, grease them properly with butter or margerine and then give them a thin coating of flour (tip a spoon of flour all over the greased base and sides, then turn upside down over the sink and bang to get rid of excess flour).

Sieve your flour and cocoa into the cake mixture rather than just tip them in. You will get a lighter cake. And when you're mixing them in, try to fold rather than stir them in.

When the cake is baking, DO NOT open the oven until 20 minutes have passed or you are absolutely convinced you can see through the oven door that it's done. Otherwise it will stop rising and sink in the middle.

To get cake out of tins, wait 5 minutes after they've come out of oven (as PP said). Then run a thin spatula or the blade of a knife around between the edge of the cake and the tin. You should see it start to come away gently. This means when you tip it upside down onto the wire rack to cool (yes, you should get some of those too if you don't have any!) the cake is much less likely to stick to the tin and end up as a pile of crumbs.

raspberry thief has given some beautifully complicated instructions on the tins. I never do any of that. I cut a circle of baking parchment to fit each tin (draw around the tin on the paper to get the size) and line the bottom of the tin with that. then the cake will come out easily. Take the paper off when the cake is cool.

Use Mary Berry’s chocolate cake recipe. Mixing the chocolate powder into a paste with water works really well.

Try Nigella's old fashioned chocolate cake. It's an all-in-one mix it up and bake recipe and it's delicious, moist and fudgy. I've make it hundreds of times and it never fails. The recipe includes a fudgy icing, perfect to stick chocolate fingers on with.

www.nigella.com/recipes/old-fashioned-chocolate-cake

For those saying that OP's son won't appreciate a home made cake, my DCs would totally disagree.

@HummingBeeBox

Betty Crocker Devils food cake all the way with a big tub of chocolate fudge icing

Definitely this. Whilst the cake is still warm (assuming you’ve baked it in two tins), cover the top of the bottom cake with marshmallows and put the other cake on top. The warmth will melt the marshmallows which then set again when cool making a lovely filling - you might want to secure the top cake with toothpicks or similar (remove before decorating) whilst it’s still melted as it can slide a bit. When cool slather in chocolate frosting and cover in chocolate buttons/sweets of choice.