Categories: BakingCakes

Chocolate Cake with rolo, kitkat filling and Swiss Meringue Buttercream

In February I had the chance to make a birthday cake for a very special girl. My friend Jamie, the one who gave me the recipe for her tater tot casserole, asked me to bake a cake for her elder daughter’s sixth birthday.

The birthday girl is currently in love with horses, so we decided that’s what she will get on her cake.

Also she wanted chocolate, chocolate chunks and pink frosting for her cake. On being asked what kind of chocolate chunks, she opted for kitkats and rolos. So that’s what this cake is all about. Chocolate cake with a rolo and kitkat filling and pink swiss meringue buttercream frosting covered in pink fondant and topped with a horse!

I found a recipe for the filling on cake central. I found it, made it and lost it. I had written it on a paper but lost the paper. I had it in my bookmarks, but I recently had to restore my laptop to factory settings, as a result I lost all my bookmarks. Thankfully I mostly use pinterest, but there was some stuff in my bookmarks which is now lost. Anyway after an hour of googling everything related to a candy bar filling I found the link I had used. Unfortunately the link did not have an exact recipe. I remember I had noted my measurements, but as I mentioned before, I lost that paper.

The gist of it is as follows:

CANDY BAR FILLING

Make a box yellow cake, let it cool.
Once cooled crumble it (think cake balls).
Add a jar of caramel ice cream topping, crushed candy bars and 8 oz cream cheese and 2 tbsp sugar.
Blend it all together, but keep it quite chunky, don’t try to go for the cake ball consistency with this.
Use the cake mixture as the filling.

For the chocolate cake I used the recipe I always use, adapted from here.

Only while typing this post did I realise I have not shared the swiss meringue buttercream recipe I use on the blog. So I am sharing that too in today’s post.

For a detailed description on Swiss Meringue Buttercream or SMB, see Sweetapolita’s blogpost on swiss meringue, demystified. Here is the link.

The inspiration for the design of the cake came from this pin and this cake. I combined the two to make my version of a horse stable cake and am glad my friend’s daughter loved it.

One bowl Chocolate Cake and swiss meringue buttercream

Ingredients

For the chocolate cake:
1 3/4 cups (220 g) all-purpose flour
2 cups (400 g) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (90 g) Cocoa Powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 cup strong, hot black coffee or espresso
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
For the swiss meringue buttercream
5 large egg whites (150 grams)
1 1/4 cups (200 gms or 250 grams if you want it sweeter) granulated sugar
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, cut into cubes
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Prepare 2 x 9" (or 3 x 8" for slightly shorter layers) cake pans with butter and flour or parchment paper.
In bowl of electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, sift all dry ingredients. Add remaining ingredients to mixture and mix for 2 minutes on medium speed. Start slow, so that you do not splash everything, and then increase the speed to medium.
Divide the liquidy batter among prepared pans.
Bake for 20 minutes and rotate pans in oven. Bake another 15 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Do not over bake.
Cool on wire racks for 20 minutes then gently invert onto racks until completely cool.

For the swiss meringue buttercream:

Place egg whites and sugar in a heat proof bowl and place over a pot of simmering water. Heat whites while whisking continuously until they are hot and sugar has completely dissolved (or 60 C or 140 F).
Remove egg white and sugar mixture from the heat and- using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment- whip on medium high speed until whites are completely cooled and have formed medium stiff peaks.
Add salt and mix through.
Switch to a paddle attachment and add butter in chunks creaming well between each addition.
When the butter is fully incorporated, and the curdled look changes to a mooth satin look, add the vanilla and whip until completely combined.

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Since I made a 6 inch cake, I had some batter that I used to make mini cakes. I also had some leftover candy bar filling and SMB left, so I made a mini layered cake for V and me to feast on. Except I did not feast on it because that’s the time my one week raw diet also started. Since there was still some candy bar filling left I made cake pops out of the leftovers and sent it to V’s office and people loved them.

I couldn’t take a picture of the cake cut, since my friend took it with her to be on this ski resort weekend she had planned for her daughter’s birthday but I did take a picture of the mini cake I made. So, here’s how the above cake would have probably looked from the inside.