Chocolate Malt Malteser Layer Cake

I made this cake for Valentine's Day! I think it's taken me so long to blog about it because it was such a stressful evening of baking! The moral of the story I learnt was when your husband tells you all he wants for Valentine's is cookies...then go with it! Rather than spend $40 on ingredients for a cake (because Vancouver clearly hates baking bloggers) only to have a fight about it with your significant other who you are making the cake for in the first place! whilst trying to clean up your whole house because the next day our family was arriving from England to stay for a week! 

Yeah...cookies would have been way easier! 

Easier...but probably not nearly as tasty as this sour cream chocolate cake, slathered with the best malt frosting in the world! I have been looking for an excuse to make this amazing frosting ever since I made it last year to frost my Malteser bunny cupcakes.  It comes from the queen of layer cakes, Sweetapolita, and I'm pretty sure one of these days I'm going to have to make the 6 layer toasted marshmallow campfire cake that she originally paired this frosting with because being the s'mores lover I am, it looks right up my street! 

Obviously, on the previously mentioned night of baking a 6 layer cake was never going to happen! In fact even my planned 3 layer cake got cut back into a 2 layer cake! and I couldn't wait long enough for the cake to cool down so I slathered on the frosting whilst it was still slightly warm, because it was approaching midnight and we were ready for bed but of course needed to taste a piece before bed and before Valentine's was over! 

Also, in my haste I picked up sour cream at the supermarket rather than buttermilk and so the actual chocolate cake recipe I was planning to use had to be abandoned...and after some last minute browsing I came across this sour cream cake via Hummingbird High and it saved the day...

and was completely moist and delicious even when we were enjoying it 3 days later in Whistler! 

Chocolate Malt Malteser Layer Cake:
Makes 2 8" layers
Adapted from Hummingbird High

3/4 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1/2 cup plus 3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 3/4 cups caster sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup water, boiling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.  Grease 2 8"cake tins.

In a medium bowl, mix together the sour cream, cocoa powder, eggs, egg yolks and vanilla extract until smooth.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together cake flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and sugar on low speed until just blended.

Add the butter and half of the wet cocoa mixture to the dry flour mixture and beat until the dry ingredients are moist.  Increase the mixer to medium speed and beat until smooth for 2 minutes.  Gradually add the remaining cocoa mixture, in 2 batches, beating well after each addition.  Add 1/2 cup boiling water and beat until smooth.

Divide the batter equally between the cake tins and smooth the tops with a spatula.  Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Let the cakes cool in the tins for 10 minutes and then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Malted Belgian Chocolate Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above with plenty leftover, and you're going to want the leftover - trust me!

From Sweetapolita

4 cups icing sugar

2 cups unsalted butter

1 tbsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup Ovaltine powder

8 oz/225g Belgian dark chocolate or other good quality 70% chocolate

1/2 cup double cream

In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine half the icing sugar and butter and beat on low speed for one minute.  While that is mixing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, and set aside to cool. Add the rest of the icing sugar and butter to the stand mixer and mix on medium speed until completely combined (I do it in two stages so as not to completely cover my kitchen in icing sugar).

Add vanilla and Ovaltine, and beat on low speed until well combined.

Add the melted, cooled chocolate and beat on medium speed until smooth (about 2 minutes). Add double cream and beat on high speed for one minute.

Once the cakes are cooled, sandwich them together with a very generous amount of the frosting.  Apply the same amount, if not more to the top of the cake.  I swished mine around with a palette knife but if you're not in a hurry you can pipe fancy swirls too!

Decorate with Maltesers/Whoppers...and if you're baking it for the one you love you can arrange them in a heart shape in the middle of the cake like I did!

Eat and enjoy!