Cauldron Cakes (v3)« Back to List of Recipes

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble! But not with these easy and fun Cauldron Cakes. They're so tempting they may pull your eyes away from your copy of Deathly Hallows! (Well, OK, let's be realistic here.)

Ingredients:

100 g caster sugar (superfine granulated sugar)
100 g butter
2 medium-sized eggs
100 g self-raising flour
a few drops vanilla essence
25 g cocoa powder
1 Tbsp milk
To decorate:
2 x 300 g packs milk chocolate cake covering
175 g icing sugar
20 paper cases (paper cupcake liners)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180 �C / 350� F / gas mark 4.
Cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Crack in one egg at a time, adding 1 Tbsp flour to prevent the egg separating.
Add the rest of the flour, a few drops of vanilla essence and whizz until pale.
Put two-thirds of the mix into a separate bowl.
Add the cocoa and milk to the remaining third and mix thoroughly.
Return the cocoa mix to the rest of the cake mixture and stir in slightly; this will give a marbled effect when cooked.
Stand the paper cases in a bun tray and add a heaped teaspoon of mixture to each.
Place in the oven and cook for about 10 minutes until golden and the top bounces back when prodded.
Remove from oven and leave until cold.
If the cakes have risen into peaks, cut off the top to leave a flat surface.
Break the chocolate into a heat-proof bowl and place over a pan of hot water until it has melted.
Cover each cake with the chocolate topping and leave to set.
Make up the glac� icing and place in the piping bag with a line nozzle. (If you don't have an icing set, drizzle the spiral on using a teaspoon.)
Starting in the centre, pipe a spiral on one cake at a time with the chocolate topping.
Drag a cocktail stick across this like spokes on a wheel to create a cobweb effect.