What sort of cake do you make for someone who can’t leave chocolate alone? (Ok, so that’s most of us, but you get the idea.) Well, this one of course.
It’s a whopping 4 kilos at minimum and covered in chocolate – It took over 45 KitKat fingers to go around the cake. It’s chocolate inside too, of course, and ganached with chocolate for good measure. Best of all, it’s not difficult – think of it as a project where you can mess up the icing and no one will know because it’s completely covered in chocolate.
Whether you’re a kid or an adult (with a kid inside), this cake is sure to please. And it’s pretty impressive to look at too!
Kit Kat and M&Ms cake
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Source: Luscious Chocolate Desserts
Serves: a big-ass cake
Ingredients
for the cake
- 3⅓ cup + 2 tbsp plain flour
- 2¼ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¾ cup cocoa powder
- ¾ cup boiling water
- 255g butter
- 2⅔ cups sugar
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups sour cream
for the frosting
- 180g dark chocolate
- ½ cup sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- ¾ tsp vanilla extract
- 225g butter, at room temperature (cut into 1" pieces)
- 2 packets M&Ms
- 12 packets KitKat (about 50 fingers)
- 1.2m of coloured ribbon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C. Spray two 9" round cake tins with cooking spray and set aside.
To make the cake
- Whisk together the cocoa powder and boiling water until smooth.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
- In a stand mixer with a padde attachment, beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract.
- With the mixer on a low speed, add in a third of the flour mixture, then 1 cup of sour cream. Repeat with the remaining flour and sour cream. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to ensure an even mixture.
- Add the cocoa mixture and mix until evenly combined.
- Divide the batter between the two prepared cake tins - it's a good idea to weigh them to make sure there's about the same in each.
- Bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Invert the cakes onto a cooling rack.
To make the frosting
- Melt the chocolate over a double boiler.
- In a heatproof bowl, mix the egg yolks with the sugar whisking constantly until all the sugar is dissolved.
- Combine the egg mixture and melted chocolate into the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk on high speed for 4 minutes or until the bowl is cool to the touch. Make sure it's actually cool or when you add the butter, you'll end up with a sloppy mess.
- Beat in the butter, one piece at a time, beating until smooth after each addition.
To assemble
- Flip the cakes over and trim the top of the cakes if needed.
- Place a 20c piece of frosting onto your cake tray to secure the cake and place one cake layer on top. Spread with a third of the ganache mixture, then top with the remaining cake layer and frost with the remaining frosting - it doesn't have to be perfect, you'll cover it up with chocolate anyway.
- Place KitKat around the circumference of the cake, then fill the top with M&Ms. Tie with a bow and there you go!
Tash, I’m planning to make this cake for my brother’s birthday and it will be my first time to bake a cake. 😀
I just want to make sure everything is well prepared. So I want to ask you how long is the kit kat bar you use? I’m afraid kitkat in Indonesia is shorter (it’s about 6-7 cm).
Salam,
Frida dari Indonesia
Hi Frida, I’ll run to the shops and check for you tomorrow, but 6-7cm is pretty short? I would’ve thought they are the same as in Malaysia. Here’s the great thing about this cake though – it really doesn’t matter what size the KitKat is. If they’re tall, you just fill with more M&Ms on top. The cake itself is about 6cm when baked, so you might not need to ganache the middle layer if you don’t want the cake to be too tall.
Yup, it’s made in Malaysia 🙂
I just checked it (I asked @KitKat_ID on twitter), 6 cm for two fingers and 10 cm for 4 fingers. I’m looking the four fingers one on supermarket but didn’t it found yet. 🙁
Ohya, Is it okay if I replace butter with margarine and sour cream with plain yoghurt? It’s easier to find and cheaper hehe
Thank you so much Tash.
I always use real butter in my cakes, you can really taste the difference. Yogurt is fine to replace sour cream though!
Err, I just made weird sentence. I mean, I haven’t found it yet. 😉
I made this on the weekend and I’m not sure what I did wrong but the cake was about half as hight as the kit kats and really dense.. any ideas what I could have done wrong?
Hi Rebecca, This cake is is usually about 3/4 height of KitKats, so you’re not far off. It’s a chocolate mud cake meaning it is usually dense but very moist. Did you follow the cake tin measurements exactly – that can affect their height a bit.
Hi Tash
Great recipe!
Just an FYI for your readers – I followed precisely and found in my oven (fan forced), the cakes needed about 45-50mins baking time to cook completely through. Also, the batter pushed my mixer to max capacity! All worth it though – very positive feedback from everyone 😀
Your blog is awesome! Thanks for sharing your ideas and recipes with all of us.
Sorry for the late reply and thanks for the tip Matt. Cakes almost always take more than the time stated in the book to make! I think closer to 45 is probably right. If I make this again, I’ll do a proper retest, but it’s good to know what other people’s ovens are doing. Thanks for reading the blog and for your kind words 🙂