Easy Birthday Cake Recipe

One of my life long ambitions is to learn how to ice cakes properly.  Currently I don't have a clue but a couple of years ago, I became sick of the sickly sweet shop bought cakes and decided that I would make my own. I have discovered that a little bit of butter icing and some decorations go a long way. They are not a work of art, but they taste good and look good and that is all that matters.

My inspiration for this cake was one which was edged with Kit Kats.  However, my teenage son loves Cadbury chocolate fingers and so I thought that I would use chocolate fingers around the edge and see how that looked.  I was quite pleased by the final cake and it was really easy to do.

This would probably work just as well with a chocolate cake, but for some strange reason, my children don't like chocolate cake, so I used a normal sponge cake recipe.

Ingredients
(for the cake)
350 g softened butter
350 g caster sugar
6 beaten eggs
350g self raising flour
1 tspn vanilla essence
Jam

2 x 8 inch cake tins

(for the topping)
200g softened butter
400g sifted icing sugar
2 table spoons of milk

1 packet of white and Cadbury chocolate fingers
Large white and milk chocolate buttons

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180c/Gas Mark 4
2. Grease and/or line your cake tins
3. Cream the softened butter with the sugar until the mixture is light and creamy
4. Add a little egg and a little flour and beat well and continue this process until the all of the ingredients are mixed in well together.  Add the vanilla essence and mix well. The mixture should be firm and not too runny.
5. Pour the mixture between the two cake tins and make sure that the mixture is fairly even
6. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until the cake has risen and is golden brown and springy to the touch.
7. Allow to cool.
8. Beat the butter for the butter icing until it is very soft.  Add the sifted icing sugar and the milk and beat until smooth.  
9. Once the cakes have cooled, put some jam in between the two cakes and put them together and then spread a thin layer of the butter icing all over the cake.
10. Add the chocolate fingers around the edge and push them into the butter icing quite firmly.
11. Add the chocolate buttons to the top of the cake.
12. Enjoy!

This is quite a large cake, so if you want a smaller version, you can halve the quantities.  I thought this looked  too big when I made it yesterday, but in less than one day, this is all that is left!