Just recently, I asked my readers on my Facebook group what sort of videos they wanted to see me do. There were a lot of requests for vlog style videos (aka ones where I am in shot and probably talking you through a recipe) but I will need to swallow a handful of bravery pills for that!
The next most commonly requested video was how to decorate cakes in a relatively simple way. As I knew I had a celebration cake coming up to make, I thought I’d take the chance and film it.
I’ll let you jump right in and see the video of How to Make A Chocolate Drip Cake first, then I’ll explain what it is and give you the recipe after the video. I hope you enjoy it!
I made this cake for a much-loved colleague who had just retired. She’s a chocolate fiend and I just knew she would love a drip cake covered in chocolates. The top tier is a new riff on my Milk Chocolate Birthday Cake recipe – a Malteser version thanks to the inclusion of some Ovaltine or Horlicks (malted milk powder).
The bottom tier is a chocolate cake that I could make in my sleep, I’ve made it so many times – Ina Garten’s chocolate cake that has been blogged so many times, I’m not reproducing the full recipe here (use this link to find the British version of the recipe). I jazzed it up by brushing it with a Chambord syrup and filled it with raspberry conserve before covering it with a raspberry buttercream. Here are the syrup and buttercream recipes:
To make the chocolate drip, you can do it a few ways and by that I mean you can use various chocolate concoctions to dribble over the edges of a cake to give that cartoon-esque, picture-perfect cake appearance which is so popular. Some cake makers use melted chocolate, some add butter or oil, or even water to make it flow better and give it a gloss.
This time, I have stuck with ganache. Simply chop 50g dark chocolate and 50g milk chocolate into small pieces then pour over 50ml of scalded double cream, whisking until you have a thick and glossy ganache. Scalded means heat the cream until it just comes to the boil, then take off the heat immediately. It’s hot enough to melt the chocolate but not so hot it will cause it to split.
I decorated the finished cake with Maltesers, unwrapped Cadbury’s Miniature Heroes and some of Iced Jems utterly fabulous sprinkles. You could use any chocolates you like, bought or homemade. Chunks of fudge, handmade truffles, shards of honeycomb broken up into random sized chunks would look spectacular and taste amazing! Literally, go to town and use whichever toppings you love. Before I give you the recipe for my Malteser Cake, here’s a list of everything you need to make this cake:
- One 6 inch round Malteser cake and Malteser frosting (recipes below)
- One 8 inch chocolate fudge cake (I do Ina’s)
- A 6 inch cake board and a 10 inch cake drum (boards are 2mm thin and drums are more like 8-10mm thick)
- One batch of Chambord syrup (recipe above)
- One batch of raspberry buttercream (recipe above)
- 5 thick and sturdy straws (sometimes sold as “bubble straws”)
- One batch of chocolate ganache (recipe above)
- A packet of Maltesers
- Half a box of Cadbury’s Miniature Heroes
- 1-2 tbsp of your favourite sprinkles.
Do watch the whole video before you start – it shows you all the stages to assemble this cake and none of them are difficult to do. It’s much easier to show you (and far less boring) than writing a long and tedious blog post! Let me know if you have any questions at all and please share and photos with me through my social media accounts if you make this cake too!
This is a smaller version of my Milk Chocolate Birthday Cake recipe with added Ovaltine, to give the Malteser vibe. If you don't have two 6 inch tins, it is easy to divide the recipe in two and bake one half at a time.
- 80 g vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs
- 140 g Greek yogurt
- 140 g caster sugar
- 100 g milk chocolate, melted
- 170 g self-raising flour
- 2/3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp Ovaltine or Horlicks powder
- 150 g soft butter
- 350 g icing sugar
- 2 tbsp Ovaltine or Horlicks powder
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Preheat the oven to 160˚C (reduce by 10-20˚C for fan ovens) and grease and line two 6 inch round cake tins.
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Whisk the oil, eggs, yogurt, caster sugar and milk chocolate together until very well combined.
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Sift over the flour, baking powder and Ovaltine or Horlicks and fold it in. Divide between the tins and bake for approximately 25 minutes. When well risen, springing back to the touch and a skewer comes out of the middle dry, remove from the oven and cool on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out of the tins.
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To make the buttercream, simply butter the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, and quite a bit paler than when you started. Beat in the Ovaltine or Horlicks.
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If the buttercream is very stiff, dribble in up to 3 tbsp of recently boiled water. I pour some into a 1/4 cup sized jug I have and pour in a drop at a time until the buttercream is a little softer - if you go too far, add some extra icing sugar.
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When the cakes are cool, sandwich with about 1/4 of the buttercream and use the rest to crumb coat and frost the cake, just as in the video.
This post contains affiliate links, meaning I will earn a little commission if you chose to buy items I’ve advertised, helping me to bring you all these recipes for free!
Like this post? Then why not try these related recipes:
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- Milk Chocolate Birthday Cake
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- Vanilla Yogurt Cake
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- Naked Wedding Cake