A delicious strawberry and Malteser chocolate cake. Double chocolate sponge cake filled with sweet strawberry jam, layered with fresh sliced strawberries and filled with rich chocolate ganache. All covered in chocolate buttercream frosting, drizzled with chocolate glaze and garnished with juicy fresh strawberries and plenty of milk chocolate Maltesers.
This was our first attempt at A Celebratory Birthday cake for Dean’s Mum’s Birthday. There is just something really special and eye catching, not to mention delicious about the combination of strawberries and chocolate. It’s my go to combination as evident from my previous posts! We finally decided on this cake after scouring oodles posts on Pinterest (I’m obsessed with Pinterest). After being suitably reigned back in by Dean (I don’t think I’m ready to create a 5 tier candied master piece just yet) we decided on a strawberry and chocolate cake.
A Recipe in the making
This cake turned out fantastic… in the end. Let’s say there were a few construction issues which is why I haven’t included the final recipe in this post. Once we have mastered it I will share it for sure.
The recipe we used for the sponge in this cake used melted milk chocolate in the batter, I was worried that the sponge would turn out dry and dense and pretty much resembling a house brick, however I was very pleasantly surprised. The sponge was a rich brown colour and had a full on chocolaty taste owing to the cocoa powder and melted chocolate, exactly what we were hoping for. It was sturdy, making it ideal to layer up and decorate, yet it was still soft and moist to the bite. I will definitely use this recipe again.
Come back Strawberries!
Once the sponge had cooled and levelled off, we spread both layers of the chocolate sponge with strawberry jam, layered the bottom layer with fresh sliced strawberries and spread the ganache over the strawberries. We then popped the other layer on top and coated the whole cake with buttercream. At this point the apartment was getting rather toasty hot and the strawberries in the middle of the cake decided it was time to dash for it along with the ganache resulting in a very lopsided, messy cake… not the look we were after.
The Construction
So, after a bit of a flap we decided to cool the cake down, put the filling back where it should be and anchor the cake together with skewers. Luckily this worked! Once we were happy the cake was secure we proceeded with covering the cake in a thin layer of chocolate buttercream, to cover all the nooks and crannies. We then glazed the top for a shiny chocolate finish, and then decorated it with strawberries and Maltesers. Looking back, we think it may have been a combination of the heat and the middle possibly being a bit too wet.
On Reflection
This double chocolate strawberry and Malteser cake was delicious and loved by the family too. Next time I think we will experiment with the filling, maybe chocolate ganache on juicy strawberries isn’t the right combination (but it tasted SO good!). We got there in the end but we will definitely be tweaking this. Any tips and advice for us would be gladly welcome!
Yum. Possibly make a stiffer ganache, less cream, more chocolate. Maybe set the strawberries in a bit of jelly/gelatin.
Ooh, good suggestions, thank you. I really like the idea of setting the strawberries. I’ll have to give this a try 👍🏻
I. Love. Chocolate. 🍃🍓
Oh wow, this looks absolutely incredible!!! I’m not sure mine would turn out anything like this if I tried it, it would be incredibly skewed and lopsided for a start. I love the Maltesers & strawberries on top, those are a nice touch. The whole thing just looks completely yum! 😀
xx