This is the birthday cake Big Boy requests every year!
Based on a recipe in the Mrs Field’s Best Ever Cookie Book, it uses the same batter as the chocolate slab cake, but instead of a roasting pan, the batter is baked in two 20cm/8″ round cake tins (the original recipe specified 23cm/9″ tins, but I don’t have any that size).
Prepare the pans by greasing them well and lining the bases (or the base and sides) with parchment paper. Divide the slab cake batter evenly between the two pans, and bake in a preheated 175C/350F fan forced oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the cakes are cooked when tested with a skewer.
The two cakes are then sandwiched together with frosting, iced and decoratively piped. The frosting uses an indecent amount of butter and icing sugar, but it is a special occasion treat. The finished cake is always popular, and feeds a horde of hungry friends!
Chocolate Frosting
- 315g (1¼ cups) unsalted butter, softened
- 500g (4 cups) icing sugar mixture (powdered sugar), sifted
- 110g (1 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted (I used dutched)
- 10ml (2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
- 65g (¼ cup) milk (or as required)
1. Sift the icing sugar mixture and cocoa together in a large bowl.
2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter in a large bowl, then beat in a third of the icing sugar/cocoa mixture and the vanilla. Beat in the remainder of the icing sugar/cocoa mixture alternately with as much milk as is required to create a spreadable frosting.
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Happy birthday to Big Boy. What a magnificent cake! I love celebration cakes which are really tall – it wouldn’t look quite the same if you made it in larger diameter tins.
What an enormous and sumptuous looking cake. Happy Birthday big boy!
Many Happy Returns to the Birthday Boy ! Save a sliver for me !
Happy Birthday to Big Boy!
One of the advantages of being so young is the ability to deal with indecent amounts of butter! :-)
May he enjoy it to the fullest!
(when I grow up, I want to bake cakes as gorgeous as yours!)
That is one big cake! Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday to Big Boy. Enjoy your lovely cake!
Happy Birthday! Great looking cake.
That cake looks enormous and magnificent too. Lucky Big Boy, I’m sure he enjoyed it and hope he had a good birthday.
Happy Birthday to Big Boy. Gorgeous cake
What a massive cake. 315g of butter, YIKES!! But it is a special occasion :D Happy Birthday Big Boy!
Happy Birthday Big Boy! As a professional chef, just let me assure you there is no such thing as an indecent amount of butter, that is my absolute professional opinion, and you can use that as justification. (Just don’t tell your doctor it was me who said it)
Happy Birthday Big Boy!
There’s this really famous chocolate cake in spore from Lana cakes. They always sell out and with a combination of bad timing on my part, I havn’t been able to get my chocolate cake fix for years. This chocolate slab cake looks just like it, gonna get honey to make this 8), thanks.
I think birthday cakes should always be 2 or more layers. The more layers for frosting the better!
P.S. Happy Birthday Big Boy :-)
Wow, does this look good! If I was in your family I would want to celebrate a birthday every week! Best wishes to the birthday boy…I don’t suppose there is any cake left, is there?
Happy Birthday to Big Boy! And I want to know how the party went too! What a magnificent cake to suit a special occasion like a birthday :)
Happy Birthday Big Boy!….now feeling horribly guilty for farming out the cooking of my big boy’s cake….groan.
What a delicious decadance of chocolate! Bithday Wishes xx
Happy Birthday Big Boy! :0)
Gorgeous Cake lovely, I just ate breakfast, (Im on holidays still) and could go a piece of this beauty for dessert…. Are there any left over? LOL!
I’ve just had a quick recap of your chocolate slab cake and I love the notion that this cake is saying “Forget about your problems, sweetie. Come sit by me for a while.” It’s the ultimate cuddle-cake. Except if I sat by it for ‘a while’ I would be face-planting and telling it all my problems – in between swallows that is. Happy Birthday BB – may you always have a little smear of chocolate that tells the world “I am celebrated’.
Thank you all for your kind wishes – I’ve let Big Boy know. No cake left, I’m afraid, but it did feed a dozen young men very happily! :)
Happy Birthday, Big Boy! A beautiful birthday cake. I can understand why there weren’t any leftovers.
Oh my, this looks delicious! No wonder he ‘orders’ it every year! Happy (belated) b’day to BB! :)
Happy Birthday to Big Boy – what a tremendous bake! Cheers, Craig
Again- your family is blessed to have you, Celia.
Your sons can’t help but know that they are loved!
That is a beautiful cake- it shines with the loving care that you made it!
Happy Birthday to your son!
What an amazing cake! A good chocolate cake is always a crowd pleaser!
How perfectly birthday cake like this is! Exactly what pops into my head when I imagine a birthday cake (one that I would like any way). I discovered just how indecent the amount of butter is in frosting when I made Lola’s number 3 cake a few months back (first time I had ever made frosting) – lucky it’s not needed most of the time!
Happy Birthday to Big Boy, fantastic cake Celia!!!! Hope he had a wonderful day!
You guys are all so nice! Thank you for your kind wishes to my lovely boy. He’s the light of our lives, and he had a simply wonderful birthday! :)
Yum Celia! No wonder he requests it every year it looks delicious.
Wow!!!! My elder two saw this photo and think this is magnificent! Happy Birthday to Big Boy!!
Claire, Anna, thank you! :)
WOW. Chocolate lover’s birthday dream! I look forward to trying it out!
Thank you! I hope you enjoy it! :)