Today my Dad turns 50! 

Wish him a happy birthday 😊 

And because it’s a special birthday, I thought it was only right to make him a birthday cake. I did ask him what his favourite cake was, or what cake he wanted- and he simply said ‘surprise me’ 

So that’s what I’m gonna do! 

The cake I’ve gone for is a Chocolate Toffee Mud Cake kinda thing… I don’t have a proper name for it to be honest, I just made it up. 

It’s the perfect mashup of chocolate sponge, toffee buttercream and dark chocolate Genache. It looks messy, but I think that’s part of its charm 😉

Chocolate Toffee Mud Cake

Ingredients

• 225g/8oz plain flour
• 350g/12½oz caster sugar
• 85g/3oz cocoa powder
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 free-range eggs
• 250ml/9fl oz milk
• 125ml/4½fl oz vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 250ml/9fl oz boiling water

For the Buttercream

• 100g butter
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 tbsp Toffee sauce
• 84ml double cream (Elmlea comes in tubs of 284ml, so I’m using the other 200ml for the Genache)

For the Genache

• 200g Dark Chocolate
• 200ml double cream

1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease 2 cake 20cm cake tins.

2. Combine all cake ingredients apart from the water in a larg bowl. Add boiling water, the mixture should be very funny at this point. 

3. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean from the cake. Leave to cool.

4. For the buttercream, combine all ingredients and mix until smooth.

5. For the Genache, microwave your cream for 90 seconds, and then add the chocolate. Stir until melted.

6. To assemble the cake, place one sponge down on the plate and drizzle with Toffee sauce, add buttercream, Genache and the second sponge. Top with more sauce, Genache and then drizzle with Toffee to finish!