Ingredients
- 250g butter , plus a little extra for greasing
- 140g white chocolate , broken into pieces
- 250ml milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 250g self-raising flour
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 300g caster sugar
- 2 large eggs , lightly beaten
FOR THE FROSTING
- 300g tub Philadelphia cheese
- 85g butter , softened
- 100g icing sugar , sifted
- mini eggs , to decorate (or use 50g/2oz chopped hazelnuts)
- Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Grease a deep 23cm cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper. Place the butter, white chocolate, milk and vanilla extract in a small saucepan, then heat gently, stirring, until melted. Combine the flour, bicarb and sugar in a large bowl with a pinch of salt, then stir in the melted ingredients and eggs until smooth. Pour the batter into the tin, then bake for 1 hr, or until the cake is golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin. Once cool, the cake can be wrapped in cling film and foil, then frozen for up to 1 month.
- To make the frosting, beat together the Philadelphia, butter and icing sugar until smooth. Spread over the cake, then decorate with mini eggs.
TIPS:
- Don't use low-fat cream cheese, as this has a much higher water content than full fat and will be more prone to going runny.
- We've used various qualities of white chocolate and have had a good result with all of them, but found that flavour - wise the standard 200g own-brand bars that each supermarket sells tasted great, plus the chocolate was easy to work with.
- For the icing, don't over-soften or melt the butter, or your icing will be too soft. It should be at room temperature but not looking greasy. The more you beat, the more you'll warm the ingredients, and the softer it will become.
- Because this cake has a high sugar content, it will develop a very dark crust as it bakes. Don't remove the cake from the oven until an hour is up - even if it looks ready.
- The surface of the cake will get a volcanic-looking ring of bubbly mixture in the middle during cooking. This is because the batter is much thinner than a normal cake mixture. By the end of the cooking time, this will have evened out and the surface should be uniform.
- To test that it's ready, insert a clean skewer into the cake. It should come out clean without any hint of stickyness.
- Make sure your eggs are the right size.
- Don't let the chocolate, milk, butter mixture get too hot. Melt over a very gentle heat, stirring regularly so the chocolate doesn't catch on the bottom. This should take a good 5 min.
