Every year I’m the same. About this time, I say to long suffering Mr TT, “it’s so strange, I don’t feel very FESTIVE yet, you know?”. He gives me this long suffering “you’ve-already-bought-a-mountain-of-Christmas-shizz-what-are-you-talking-about?” look and carries on reading the paper.
Then, I get the mixed spice and Nigella’s Christmas book out and do some baking and there, all is well with the world and the festive season is upon me. I adore festive baking, it feels like an excuse to create something for anyone and everyone. It feels like a need to bestow sugary treats upon everyone and anyone as my final good deed for the year. Oh and I love cinnamon.
So, as I mentioned last week, I’d LOVE to share the food festivities with anyone else who loves Christmas food as much as me! You can read about my little blog linky at the bottom of this post.
First things first, this here cake. You know me, I can make an excuse for a layer cake out of anything. Of course Christmas would be no different. I made this cake two years ago for the first Christmas party that my NCT group and I shared. All of our teeny weeny babies are now crazy toddlers and they would adore this cake. It’s not a rich, dark, grown up cake. It’s a light, soft sponge, not too rich. Perfect for a children’s Christmas party or an afternoon tea.
Here’s a little video of me putting it together…
Spiced Chocolate Layer Cake
A perfect festive layer cake with spiced chocolate.
Ingredients
- 450 g unsalted butter
- 225 g caster sugar
- 225 g soft light brown sugar
- 8 medium free range eggs
- 400 g self raising flour
- 4.5 tablespoons of good quality cocoa like Green & Blacks
- 1 tablespoon mixed spice
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 3 tablespoon milk
For the icing:
- 600 g unsalted butter
- 900 g icing sugar
- Sugarflair Gel Food Colours Holly Green/Party Green
- Sugarflair Gel Food Colours Ruby/Christmas Red
To decorate:
- Holly sprinkles
Instructions
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Grease 3 x 7" round sandwich tins.
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Preheat the oven to 180C.
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Cream your room temperature butter with your sugars until it’s pale, light and fluffy.
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Mix in the eggs, one at a time, beating really well after each egg. Don’t worry if it starts to look a bit curdled, it’ll all come good.
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Mix in your flour,cocoa, mixed spice and cinnamon. If you’ve been using a mixer, do this bit by hand. It helps to keep the sponge light.
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Stir in the milk.
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Spoon into a your tins, smooth out with the back of a spoon. Make a bit of a dip in the middle to account for rising. (I am a bit OCD and tend to weigh mine into the tins to make sure they are all the same size, there should be about 800g of batter in each tin.)
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Bake for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. You might need to adjust the time by 5 minutes either way depending on your oven.
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Meanwhile make your icing. Beat your butter until it's pale, light and fluffy.
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Beat in your icing sugar and vanilla. Beat in a teaspoon or two of boiling water to soften and lighten the texture of the icing.
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When your cakes are completely cold, use a carving knife to level them. Just trim the top crust off. This is important, it's not a waste of cake (taste testing compulsory). If you don't do this, with a cake this size it will be wonky. Then trim each sponge in half so you end up with 6 layers.
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Colour 200g of buttercream red and 200g green.
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Sandwich each layer together with alternating coloured buttercream.
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Use the remainder of the buttercream to cover the cake and pop some swirls on top.
Hope you enjoy the cake! Now.. Fancy showing me what festive food love you’re feeling this week? I’d love you to share with me, I’m having new linky anxiety and hope at least one or two of you join me, or it’ll just be me lusting over mince pies from now until Christmas. So, here’s how it works:
- Tag any festive food or drink photos with #festivefoodfriday.
- Each week I’ll pick the most mouthwatering/funny/calorific and repost them.
- You can follow me @tamingtwins. Please say hello!
Blog Linky
- Please add the badge below to your post. (I’ll be super grateful.)
- Link up your festive season food or drink posts using the widget below. They can be recipes, round ups, drinks, meals out, anything that’s inspiring to festive food lovers.
- You can add up to 3 posts each week if you’d like.
- I will pin all of the posts added to my Pinterest board, which has over 50,000 followers.
- The linky will be open until Wednesday the following week.
- Please visit and comment on at least 2 of the other posts that have linked up, per post that you add. Spread that Christmas cheer!
- If you follow me on Twitter and tweet a link mentioning @tamingtwins and #festivefoodfridays, I will RT them.
- Each week I will write a round up, linking to some of my favourite posts from the week before.
- Please spread the word, the more the merrier!
There we have it, hope you enjoy and I can’t wait to see what you’re all up to!
Sarah x
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You truly are the queen of ‘big’ cakes. This festive one looks absolutely stunning, and I bet it tastes good, too! x
Oh this is beautiful, adore the green and red icing. Also love a variation on a fruit cake for the festive period xx
Wow! Sarah another stunning cake from you, I’ve linked up with my Festive Cookies.
What an awesome looking cake! Love the addition of cinnamon – goes great with chocolate. Thanks for hosting too – will be there with a few links in a mo. Happy Friday from me at http://detoutcoeurlimousin.blogspot.fr/
Oooh what a fab cake and a great idea for a linky! Count me in (once I start feeling festive!) 🙂
Oh wow that cake is just to die for – I’ve never made anything like that, very impressed Sarah:-)
That layer cake looks great for grown ups never mind kids! Xmas cake doesn’t go down well in my house so that would be a great alternative. How long will it keep for? Chrissie
I’d eat it within a couple of days Chrissie 🙂
What an amazing cake! The addition of cinnamon sounds divine and I love the red and green icing layers……. so festive!
Oh wow – that looks amazingly good, especially to a reluctant baker like me! Love those cutout felt placemats too – so festive!
What a fab cake, just the thing to get us all feeling festive. Will be linking up soon.
I know I said this on Instagram, but this really is immense! Will be linking up to some of your next ones soon! x
wow, this cake is absolutely stunning. Love the green and red between the layers
I started my Christmas baking in October so it feels like Christmas is coming very slowly – I can’t believe it’s still over a month away (although that’s probably a good thing as I still need to write all of my cards).
I love your cake, really beautiful and it sounds yummy.
That cake looks AMAZING! I’ve never really thought of chocolate cake as very festive for some reason but that sounds great. So do festive food fridays, I’m definitely going to try and get involved once my christmas posts begin 🙂
Oh. Wow. One of my favourite things about this time of year is all of the delicious flavours, so to have them all wrapped up in one delicious looking cake is like heaven! I’m definitely going have to try this 🙂 beautiful photos too! x
Wow Sarah this cake looks so delicious! I will remember to link up with any festive recipes x #tastytuesdays
Ooo that cake looks and sounds yummy! I’m definitely in the Christmas frame of mind now! Hope to join in with your Linky soon!
Such a lovely idea. I will need to put on my thinking hat and come up with a good Christmas baking idea and join up!
Yay! See you here soon lovely 😉
You are a creative genius lady-wow! Get writing your book! Thanks for linking up to #tastytuesdays
Cake sounds delicious and very festive. I love how massive it is!
Great video too – especially your apron!