Easy Chocolate Easter Cake

5 from 1 vote

A delicious chocolate sponge cake, decorated with chocolate buttercream, Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs! This Chocolate Easter Cake is quick and simple to make and requires no special equipment. Perfect for Easter bake sales and celebrations, and an ideal cake to make with kids!

Course Cake, Dessert, Pudding

Cuisine British

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings slices

Calories 567kcal

Author Eb Gargano

Equipment

1 large bowl
1 Wooden spoon
2 x 7inch (18cm) round cake tins
1 regular table knife (or a palette knife, if you have one)
1 cooling rack (optional - use your grill rack if you don't have one!)
1 skewer (optional - use the handle of a teaspoon if you don't have one!)
Baking paper

Ingredients

Cake:

225 g butter or margarine softened (see Note 1)
225 g caster sugar
4 large eggs
225 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
50 g cocoa powder
4 tablespoons milk

Buttercream:

200 g butter or margarine softened (see Note 1)
400 g icing (confectioner's) sugar sieved (this is really important or you will end up with lumpy icing!)
50 g cocoa powder sieved (this is really important or you will end up with lumpy icing!)

Decoration:

Cadbury’s Mini Eggs (I used 100g)
Cadbury’s Creme Eggs (I used 2 large ones and 3 mini ones)
Or any other decoration you like!

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Making the cake:

Pre heat your oven to 180C / 160C fan / gas mark 4 / 350F. Grease 2 x 7inch (18cm) round cake tins with butter or margarine. Put a circle of baking paper on the bottom of each tin and grease the baking paper. (There is no need to fully line the tins.)
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy looking. (See Note 2.)
Add one egg and beat until combined. Repeat with the other eggs, adding them in one at a time.
Add in half the flour and fold it in gently.
Stir in the baking powder and cocoa powder.
Add in the remaining flour and fold in gently.
Stir in the milk to loosen the cake batter slightly.
Put half the mixture in each cake tin and spread the mixture evenly over the base of each tin. Level the surface with a spoon or spatula.
Put the cake tins in the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes. When they are ready, the cakes should be pulling away slightly at the sides. To be sure they are done, push a skewer (or a teaspoon handle if you don’t have a skewer) into the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. If it comes out covered in mixture, pop the cake back in the oven for a few more minutes and check again.
When the cakes are cooked, remove them from the oven. Leave in their tins for 10 minutes, or until cool enough to handle, then turn out onto a cooling rack. (Use your grill rack, if you don’t have a cooling rack.)
Leave the cakes to completely cool before decorating. (Approximately 1 hour after you have removed them from the tins.)

Decorating the cake:

Make up the buttercream by mixing the softened butter, sieved icing sugar and cocoa together – you can do this by hand or with an electric beater. I always do it by hand – it’s not very much effort if you are only doing a small quantity.
When the cakes are cool assess which one is flattest. Trim this one down so it is completely flat (yes I know that means you lose a bit of one of your cakes but…well you’ve got to taste a bit to check it’s ok, right?)
Spread half the buttercream all over the flat cake top, using a knife. Then put the other cake on top. Cover the top cake with the remaining buttercream and decorate with mini eggs and/or creme eggs and/or whatever else you fancy!

Notes

I much prefer the taste of a cake made with butter, but the problem with butter is that, if it has been in the fridge, it is rock solid! However, I learnt a very simple trick from the amazing Mary Berry… Fill a bowl with lukewarm water (the temperature of a very little baby’s bathwater). Chop the butter into 1cm cubes. Drop the cubes into the water and leave them for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, tip the water out. (I use my hand to stop the little butter cubes coming out with the water.) And voila! You should now have perfectly soft butter.
You can absolutely make this cake with an electric mixer, simply put all the cake ingredients in a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes until it looks like cake batter. However, I prefer to do things the old fashioned way (with a spoon and arm power!) and have given you my traditional method above.
Suitable for freezing. (Undecorated cakes only.)
Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

Nutrition