A Fun Bank Holiday Baking Project : Cadbury Buttons/Mini Roll Owl Cake

As Bucks Fizz once famously sang, if you can't stand the heat, keep out of the kitchen. Well, it wasn't me that couldn't deal with the heatwave in the Madhouse Kitchen yesterday - it was my chocolate buttons !

Cadbury had sent me through this fabulous baking bundle, along with the recipe, to try to recreate the cute owl cake in the top picture. Unfortunately, when we got to the decorating stage, we discovered that the chocolate buttons and flakes had completely melted in the heat ! We popped them in the fridge to go hard again and the Madhouse kids still ate them but they were very misshapen, so I had a think and saved the day with another Cadbury product that we had in the cupboard - Mini Rolls ! 

Even they were slightly melted but I stuck them in the freezer compartment of the fridge to firm up for half an hour and they worked perfectly. It's actually a very simple cake to make and the hardest part is stopping the kids from eating all the ingredients before you've finished making it ! It would also be great as the centrepiece for a kids' party.

Cadbury Buttons/Mini Roll Owl Cake

Ingredients

The cake:

200g caster sugar

200g soft unsalted butter

140g Self raising flour

½ tsp baking powder

4 tbsp Cadbury's Bournville cocoa powder

4 medium eggs

Icing:

100g Cadbury's Bournville dark chocolate

100ml double cream

knob of butter

Decoration

2x Cadbury's giant milk chocolate buttons

1 x bag Cadbury's white chocolate buttons

1 x bag Cadbury's milk chocolate buttons

1 Cadbury's chocolate flake

(or I used 2 Cadbury Mini Rolls)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180ºC fan/ 160ºC / Gas mark 3. Line a 20cm square cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Cream the sugar & butter together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs with a spoonful of flour to prevent it curdling.

Add the remaining flour, the baking powder and the cocoa powder and mix gently until well combined.

Pour the cake mixture into the tin and cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

When cooked, cool the cake in the tin for a few minutes then turn out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool.

To make the icing, melt the chocolate and cream in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, add the butter and stir to combine the butter, chocolate and cream. Leave to cool and thicken.

To make the owl shape, put the cake on a flat tray and, using a round cake tin as a template, cut the cake with a sharp knife, saving the offcuts for wings, ears and legs if enough is left over. (I just cut mine freehand, aiming for a basic snowman shape as a starting point.)

Cover the owl body, wings, ears and legs with the chocolate icing.

Use the giant chocolate buttons for eyes and white ones on top for the pupils. Crush the flake in its packaging and then use to create feathery wings and ears. Use the milk chocolate and white chocolate buttons for the owl's tummy. Finish off with a Cadbury's Maynards mix up raspberry jelly for the owl's beak. (Or I used sliced up Cadbury Mini Rolls and mixed the chocolate crumbs with the remaining cake offcuts broken into crumbs for the wings.)

It was great fun to make and very tasty too (or should that be too-wit-too-woo !)

Disclosure : We received a baking kit in order to make the cake.