My Big Brother's Birthday Cake - Chocolate and more Chocolate

Another family Birthday... another excuse to bake!!

I am going to use my "Go To Chocolate Cake" which you will find posted in another post. Once that is baked and cooled...

1 portion Cream Cheese Icing
1 portion Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

When the cake is completely cool I use one of my favourite tools, the cake leveller - it's like a big horizontal cheese wire, which you slide through the middle of the cake, leaving you with a totally flat and even top. If you have a domed top slice that off first. It also leaves you with some bits of cake to nibble. This baking is hungry work.

Dollop a couple of spoons of the cream cheese icing on the top, and smooth it over the top and sides of the cake. This is the Crumb Layer - you don't need to make it pretty or even, it's just the base layer so that you have a pretty layer later.

 See... not very pretty! Set that aside until it isn't sticky to the touch. Use this time to make a cup of tea, and test some of the off-cuts from the top of the cake, dipped in icing. Trust me.

Then take the chocolate cream cheese icing and spread over the top of the crumb layer. To be honest, it doesn't matter for this cake how it looks, as we are about to cover it completely!!

 Then take a load of chocolate cigarellos / fingers / matchsticks or anything that it long enough and arrange around the cake.

Finally, throw on a load of fruit... so it's a healthy cake!! I think the best combination with this is raspberries...