Lockdown Sanity Baking!

I walk, and I play tennis, but mainly I watch what I eat. I eat all the things that I love, including cake. Cake is very important to me. But it's all about the size of the slice!

Mary Berry

Well, we’re now well into week six or is it seven, I've lost count of lock down with little chance of anything like normality coming anytime soon. I have many friends, with and without kids that are finding it a challenge, taking care of your mental health has never been more important however, I know for many it’s hard. As I’ve mentioned before in here, I’ve had my challenges in the past however, every day, every week, every month, every year the daemons get smaller and further away and you know, you have to work on it! Second Life has for many years now been part of my therapy, I think without the friends like Viv and Ella, (love you both!!) I’ve made over the years coping would be so much harder!

It’s not just Second Life that helps keep me sane, as you know I love running, I love yoga, I love travel but one thing I’ve found really helpful over the past few weeks is baking! I’m not sure I’ve spoken about it much however, I love a good cake and the fact I’ve been going to work by car instead of the tube means I’ve been able to bake for my friends at work! I like nothing more than an indulgent cake with a nice cup of coffee, here’s a favourite I only discovered recently, I made it near the beginning of lock down and it went down so well, I’ve had to make it again!

From the get go, this isn’t my own recipe, for some time now I’ve been following a blog by the amazingly talented Kat Buckley (aka The Baking Explorer), this is one of hers.

Two of my guilty pleasure are Snickers bars so, when I saw a recipe for Chocolate Snickers Cake, I got all the ingredients and got cracking! I’m glad to say, they’re Kat’s favourite also, subsequently they were the inspiration for this masterpiece! The cake has a lovely chocolate sponge that’s filled and topped with a chocolate and peanut butter buttercream. There’s caramel sauce inside and all over the top, then you’ve got crunchy roasted peanuts which again are inside and on top to get that Snickers flavour throughout the cake. On top of the cake are Snickers bars of course! They’re chopped them up so you can see the lovely layers inside them. This cake is definitely more about chocolate, with peanut flavour coming second.

Ingredients

For the sponge

500 g Butter or baking spread she uses Stork
500 g Caster sugar
9 Eggs large
1 tbsp Milk
75 g Cocoa powder
425 g Self raising flour
1/4 tsp Baking powder

For the buttercream

300 g Butter or baking spread
125 g Peanut butter
545 g Icing sugar
55 g Cocoa powder
2 tbsp Milk

For filling and decoration

250 g Caramel sauce Good quality shop bought, or homemade. She uses Tesco's Finest
100 g Roasted peanuts salted is ok
6 Snickers bars Chopped up

To make the cake mix the butter and sugar together, then whisk in the eggs and milk, followed by cocoa powder, baking powder and self-raising flour.

Divide the mixture between three cake tins and bake them for 35 minutes.

Then layer up the cake, filling each layer with chocolate peanut butter buttercream, caramel sauce and roasted peanuts.

To decorate the Chocolate Snickers Cake, pipe buttercream rosettes all around the top, and some smaller ones in the centre. Then I drizzle over plenty of caramel sauce, and a generous amount of peanuts! The finishing touch is sliced Snickers bar all around the edge.

Here are some really useful tips Kat provides for making the Chocolate Snicker Cake:

You can make your own caramel sauce if you like. I prefer to use a shop bought one as there are so many good quality and delicious ones available now. I often use Tesco’s Finest, and I’ve also used Carnation Carmel and Bon Maman in the past too.
If you want to bake this as a smaller cake, check out my Ingredients & Conversions page! I also have a Snickers Cupcakes recipe.
It’s quite easy nowadays to find a good quality ready made caramel (or salted caramel) sauce in the shops or online. I usually use Tesco’s Finest, Bonn Maman or Carnation Caramel.

For further instructions and more fabulous recipes, check out the Baking Explorer website

Give it a go, honestly, best cake EVER

What’s on this week?