Madhouse recipe : Giant cupcake birthday cake

This week, Sophie turned 17 - where does the time go?! Her actual birthday was our final day on holiday in Bulgaria so, after chilling out at the pool and hitting the souvenir shops for one last time, we spent the evening flying back home. As her friend was coming to stay for a few days, I waited until she arrived to make her birthday cake - better late than never, right ?!

I had a two-part giant cupcake mould (from a now defunct Bake Box subscription that I reviewed) that I had never used before, so I decided to give it a try. I therefore adapted the recipe that came with it for the cake batter, as I had no idea of the quantities needed to fill it.

Giant cupcake birthday cake

ingredients :

350g softened butter

350g sugar

6 eggs

pinch of salt

425g self raising flour

4tbsp golden syrup

4tbsp salted caramel

1tsp vanilla essence

to decorate :

Betty Crocker vanilla and chocolate buttercream style icing

chocolate stars

sprinkles

Start by creaming together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs and finally the flour to create a smooth batter. Stir through the vanilla essence, golden syrup and salted caramel. I was using up odds and ends from the baking cupboard so feel free to adapt to use whatever you have.

Pierre was helping me out in the kitchen and we had a taste of the uncooked cake mix to see what the flavour was like. It tasted really sweet so I held back on the icing to stop it being too sickly. However, once it was cooked, the cake was much less sweet and even a bit bland, so make sure you taste the cooked offcuts before icing rather than just licking the spoon ! 

Use the cake batter to fill the two moulds and pop in the oven for 2 hours at 160°, removing the smaller top half after 90 minutes and the bigger bottom half after 2 hours. (As I was simultaneously cooking a roast dinner, they had to make do with 180° at the bottom of the oven !) 

When a skewer or sharp knife pushed into the centre comes out clean, remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.

Use a sharp knife to cut off the excess to get flat surfaces.

Spoon a layer of chocolate icing on to the base of the top half and use it to stick the two parts together. I used sparingly as I didn't want it to be too sweet, but with hindsight, I should have added more.

Pipe vanilla icing around the top half in swirls, or just spread it on with a spoon.

While the cakes were cooking, Pierre had helped me rummage through the baking cupboard to see what we could find (and taste !) to decorate them. We came up with some big chocolate stars and various Cake Angels jars (Super Sours, Rhubarb & Custard, Fruity Cubes) but you could use any kinds of sprinkles and cake toppers for the cupcake effect.

It had lots of visual appeal, as it does look just like a giant cupcake, but I found the cake itself to be a bit bland and dense. The original recipe had finely chopped pecans in it, instead of golden syrup and salted caramel, so feel free to improvise with what you have in the cupboards to jazz it up a bit.

Happy birthday Sophie ! 

Adding to the #KitchenClearout linky as it used up some tubs of buttercream icing and lots of cake sprinkles that I found in the cupboard.