Munchie Malt Cake

If you like me love to watch any kind of cooking/baking program on tv, I'm sure you've seen Baking Made Easy by now. To be honest it isn't my favourite show, but I can understand the target audience.
In the first episode Lorraine Pascale made a cigarello cake, which looks impressive but isn't that hard. This got Isabel and I talking about the kinds of things you could use instead of cigarello's as they are quite expensive. Then last week Poires au chocolat made this lovely Kit Kat cake, which got me thinking about a few things...


It was our friend Athina's birthday in December (I know long overdue), but we hadn't gotten a chance to see her for a while, so I took this opportunity to make her a belated birthday cake. Now Athina loves chocolate, and I mean LOVES it. So I made her a chocolaty (but not sickly) cake.
A few weeks ago I made Dorie Greenspan's Devils Food Cake, and the chocolate cake recipe was gorgeous, so I adapted this recipe (literally follow the cake recipe to a T and then just sub in the Malt) making it into a chocolate malt cake, by replacing 1/2 a cup of cocoa powder with 1/2 a cup of Ovaltine instead.  I'm one of those people that loves malt in warm milk, I know its a granny thing to like, but its just so comforting after a long day! (Don't judge me, try it and see!)


 I then decided to use a fail safe chocolate buttercream recipe from the Hummingbird Cook Book which is below, adding some malty goodness to that too and was inspired by munchies as a fun cake decoration.

Now I know its not as pretty many other cakes, I just don't seem to have that panache for decoration. But it looks like a nice chunky chocolate tyre, and believe me it tastes sooooo good! So good in fact that I had to make another one the next night for my family as we left the rest with Athina (it would have been rude to take it away...).


Munchie Malt Cake


Chocolate Buttercream
(adapted from the Hummingbird Cook Book)


Ingredients


200g unsalted butter at room temp
60g cocoa powder
20g Ovaltine (or malt that you can find)
300g Icing sugar
80ml milk


Method


1. Put the butter, cocoa powder, malt and icing sugar in a bowl and combine. Don't worry that it's so dry, just keep at it and it will all combine together soon.
2. Once the mixture has started to get crumb like, add a drop of the milk to it to help you along and keep beating adding the milk bit by bit until you get a nice creamy mixture.
3. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes or until ready to use, then spread liberally!