So, this week was my lovely boyfriend, Will’s birthday. Of course, any excuse to try out a new idea for a cake excites me very much and this is my favouritist yet!
His dad gave him a toy owl when he was five years old, and since then, he’s had a penchant for the hooting bird of prey. So of course, I had to make him an owl birthday cake!
The recipe calls for sunflower oil, as opposed to butter so it’s lovely and moist and lasts a little longer than alternative sponges. You don’t have to ice it at all – the cake itself has a lot of flavour so I think a simple whipped cream would suffice, however, as a birthday falls but once a year, I went the whole hog!
It’s extremely easy to make! Here’s how:
For the cake:
3 medium eggs
150g dark chocolate chips
300g self-raising flour
300g caster sugar
9 tbsp cocoa powder
225ml sunflower oil
150ml soured cream
1 and a half tsp vanilla extract
100ml water
5g butter for greasing
For the topping:
Chocolate icing:
100g dark chocolate
100g white chocolate
140g unsalted butter
340g icing sugar
2 tbsp milk (optional)
Decoration:
White chocolate buttons
Sugar coated milk chocolate (Galaxy Minstrels work well)
Method:
To make the cake, heat the oven to 180℃ and grease two 21cm sandwich tins. Combine the eggs, self-raising flour, sugar, cocoa, oil, soured cream and water and beat until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips. Divide between the tins and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Leave in the tin for 30 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Whilst waiting for the cakes to cool, beat the butter and half of the icing sugar together until smooth. Add one tablespoon of the remaining icing at a time and mix. Melt the white chocolate and dark chocolate separately by placing each one in two bowls over a simmering saucepan of water. Once the chocolate has melted, stir half of the icing mixture into the white chocolate, and the other half into the dark chocolate until smooth. If the icing is too thick, add a tablespoon of milk.
Once the cakes are cooled, use the dark chocolate icing to sandwich the cakes together. Cover the perimeter of the sandwich with the same icing and smooth over with a palette knife. Be careful to leave a tablespoon or so to use later on. With a separate knife, spread the white chocolate icing onto the top of the cake to form a basic owl shape. When satisfied with the shape, use the remaining dark chocolate icing to fill outside the outline of the owl shape so that the cake is now completely covered in frosting.
Press in white chocolate buttons to the white icing at a 45 degree angle to form the feathers. Use two Minstrels to form the owl’s eyes and push one directly into the cake to form the mouth.
Et voila! A lovely little owl cake that is so cute, you almost won’t want to eat it.
hello sugar 