Natalie from Luna Lacey had her belated birthday party a little while ago and since she hadn’t had one for SIX YEARS (!!!), I decided that she deserved a really good birthday cake. Turns out, this is the best chocolate cake ever and was so easy to make!

I had this vision of a cake that oozed absolute gluttonous opulence, filled with chocolate and caramel and I think I got it right! The cake was wolfed down by everyone followed by much belly rubbing, a good sign wouldn’t you say?

I made the two chocolate cakes using this recipe from Add A Pinch as a base and altered it ever so slightly. It’s really really easy, just make sure that you leave the cakes to cool for at least ten minutes in the pans, if you don’t, they end up breaking as you tip them out (I have first-hand experience with this, and it is devastating).

For the cake:

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons coffee powder

1 cup milk

3/4 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 cup boiling water

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius and grease two cake tins.

Add all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl and give it a good stir.

Add all of the wet ingredients (not the boiling water) together and mix until combined.

Now add the boiling water, the batter will be very runny, but don’t worry, that’s exactly how it should be.

Distribute the batter between the two cake tins evenly and bake for 30-35 minutes. Make sure that you test the cake with a skewer before turning off the oven. Stick the skewer in, if it comes out clean, the cake is ready, if there is still some batter on it, it needs to bake longer.

To decorate:

Between the two layers I spread some (okay, a whole tin) of caramel, this worked really well to keep the two cakes together.

Once that was done, I whipped up some chocolate icing sugar and spread it all over the top and around the sides.

After that I emptied another can of caramel into a bowl and added about 1-2 tablespoons of milk to make it slightly more runny. I popped this into a piping bag and piped the caramel around the edges and on the top of the cake, letting it run down the sides.

To make the cake even more decadent, I stuck Oreos along the bottom of the cake and then broke up lots of chocolate and made a chocolate mountain on the top. I chose to use Caramello slabs, Mars Bars and chocolate marshmallow eggs.

This cake was such a hit, I am definitely going to make it again! If you decide to whip one up, please post a picture on social media and tag me, I would love to see your creations!