Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Cake

This Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Cake is pure, sweet, nostalgic indulgence for all lovers of Cadbury’s chocolate. The sponge is flavoured with Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate and comes filled & topped with Dairy Milk buttercream. Garnishes can be as understated or extravagant as desired, but this Cadbury’s cake cries out to be decorated with at least a few chocolate treats.

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The inspiration behind this Cadbury’s Dairy Milk cake came about directly from a reader’s question regarding the potential use of drinking chocolate powder in cake making. So if you are that inquisitive reader, thank you!

Using drinking chocolate powder in place of cocoa powder in a cake wasn’t something that had crossed my mind until reading that question. But I could immediately see the merits of it for producing an entirely different, less intense, chocolate offering.

Of course, once recipe testing on the drinking chocolate cake began it wasn’t long before I got sucked down the Dairy Milk route. Drinking chocolate and Dairy Milk ended up being such naturals together in this Cadbury’s chocolate cake. In fact, it’s impossible to identify which one deserves the title of star of the show. It really is a joint act.

What makes this Cadbury’s cake so special?

I can’t imagine I really need to do much persuading to encourage the average person to embark on making this Cadbury’s cake. But just in case, here’s what you can expect from this recipe:

• It’s a quick and easy cake to bake.
• And it really doesn’t need to be iced in a fancy fashion. The rustic approach adds extra charm to this cosy drinking chocolate cake.
• The lighter chocolate flavour makes it an ideal option for those who find many chocolate cakes too rich.
• Using a variety of different Cadbury’s products for decoration can add extra interest to this Dairy Milk chocolate cake.

Whether you intend to turn this fun Cadbury’s cake into a celebratory birthday cake or just to enjoy it for the love of cake, it’s bound to be a hit.

What is Dairy Milk?

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk is a brand of milk chocolate manufactured by Cadbury since 1905. Cadbury is a British company, first established in Birmingham in 1824. The Dairy Milk chocolate bar is their top-selling bar and it’s popular throughout the world, not just in the UK. Dairy Milk is made with at least 20% cocoa solids and copious amounts of milk (a glass and a half as the advertising slogan boasts).

The chocolate has a creamy and sweet taste and a smooth consistency that melts in the mouth superbly well. It may not be high-end chocolate but it is undeniably tasty and a square or two is always hard to resist.

Of course, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate is also at the heart of numerous other Cadbury’s chocolate products including Dairy Milk Buttons, Dairy Milk Fingers, Freddos and the Dairy Milk caramel bars.

And while we’re talking about all things Cadbury’s, let’s answer another question: what is Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate? Also known as Cadbury’s Hot Chocolate, it is a powder made from sugar and cocoa powder. This drinking chocolate is intended to be swirled into hot milk to make a quick, easy and cheap hot chocolate drink.

Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate has been knocking around for decades. In fact, it was my daily hot drink of choice before I discovered the delights of tea at 19 years old – so you could say I grew up on this. I’m still partial to a mug to this day so it was probably written in the stars that I’d eventually devise a drinking chocolate cake for LittleSugarSnaps.

Ingredients and equipment notes

Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate powder is essential for this cake. It adds the perfect level of sweet and milky chocolate flavour to the sponge. I don’t advocate using any other brands – this is, after all, a Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate cake.

Please don’t use Cadbury’s Highlights chocolate powders. Over the years I’ve read countless horror stories about the results of baking with low-calorie chocolate powders. I haven’t tested this recipe with Highlights and I don’t intend to. This cake is far from low-calorie so there’s really no point in risking inferior results by using a skinny chocolate powder.

Please also avoid the version of hot chocolate that is designed to be mixed with hot water rather than milk. Again, I’ve not tested the recipe with this product.

I’ve snuck a little buttermilk into the sponge cake mixture. This lends a delicately moist and soft texture to the cake given that there’s quite a bit of drinking chocolate powder also landing in the bowl. It works wonderfully well and leftover buttermilk can be used to make scones or pancakes.

To be in keeping with the Dairy Milk theme of this cake, use only Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate when making the buttercream. The recipe for the buttercream has been devised with this chocolate in mind. It includes less icing sugar to counterbalance the sweetness of this chocolate and a dash of cream to amplify its creamy nature.

Decorations are where you can have some fun and let your imagination run riot. I’ve stuck with the Dairy Milk theme and opted for Cadbury’s Giant Buttons and I’ve also crushed up some Cadbury’s Flake and used it in a couple of places.

If anything, I’ve been intentionally understated in my choice of garnishes (regrettably my eyes are always bigger than my dessert tummy these days). But I’ve included a section on ideas for decorating this Cadbury’s Chocolate cake more extravagantly towards the end of this blog post.

To ensure this recipe is quick and simple to prepare I opted for a 2-layered Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate cake sandwiched together and decorated with buttercream. Using 8-inch (20cm) cake tins provided a perfectly proportioned cake for this set-up.

Step-by-step instructions

There are 3 stages to making this Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate cake, but they are all quick and simple.

Make the Drinking Chocolate Cake

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder and drinking chocolate together and sieve half into the butter mixture. Fold in.
4. Mix in the buttermilk and vanilla extract.
5. Sieve the rest of the flour mixture in and fold in until thoroughly combined and no streaks of flour remain.
6. Divide equally between the cake tins (greased and lined) and bake until a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
7. Turn out of the tins onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

Make the Dairy Milk Buttercream

8. Melt the Dairy Milk chocolate gently either over a Bain-Marie or in the microwave on low heat in 15-second bursts. Stop heating when a few lumps still remain then stir until smooth and set aside to cool for 5 minutes.
9. Meanwhile beat the butter until smooth then sieve the icing sugar in, bit by bit, beating well between each addition.
10. Mix in the vanilla extract.
11. Take 1 spoonful of the buttercream and quickly beat it into the melted chocolate. It will get quite firm and have a dull appearance.
12. Transfer the chocolate mix to the buttercream and beat until smooth.
13. Finally, pour the cream into the bowl and beat once more until everything is smooth and creamy.

Assemble the Dairy Milk Cake

14. Put ⅓ of the buttercream into a small bowl. Crumble the Cadbury’s Flake into pieces and mix half of it into the ⅓ buttercream.
15. Spread this buttercream over 1 of the sponge cakes and top with the second layer.
16. Spread a thin layer of buttercream over the top of the cake then use the remainder to pipe 14 buttercream rosettes on top of the cake.
17. Scatter the remaining crumbled Flake into the centre of the cake and wedge a Dairy Milk Giant Button into the centre of each rosette.

Expert tips

• A common mistake in baking is inaccurately measuring (or not measuring at all) the ingredients. Get around this potential pitfall by using digital scales. They are so much more accurate than the cup system, which is an infuriatingly inaccurate method because cups can vary in size and one person’s method of filling a cup can be quite different to another person’s.
• Use the tin size specified (two 8-inch round tins). Don’t try to cram the mixture into tins that are too small or large as bake times will vary, the batter may spill over the edge in the oven (messy) and the thickness of the finished cakes may not be useful.
• Ensure the butter is at room temperature and soft. Eggs should also be at room temperature.
• Preheat the oven and prepare the baking tins before baking commences. This way the cake can go into the oven as soon as it is mixed and the raising agents are activated.
• Even if your tins are non-stick always grease the tins and use a circle of baking parchment to line the bases. Getting your cakes out will be so much easier if you do this.
• Each ingredient has its place and purpose in this Dairy Milk chocolate cake. Leaving things out or making substitutions is really not advisable. If in doubt about something please send me a message, I may be able to advise before baking commences.
• When melting the Dairy Milk chocolate do so cautiously. It is very easy to overheat this chocolate, causing it to seize and/ or burn. I melt mine in a microwave (low-moderate heat) in 15-second bursts of power, stirring as the chocolate melts.
• The sponge cake layers must be completely cold before assembling this Dairy Milk cake. If the cakes are still warm when the buttercream is applied it will melt and the cake will be ruined.

Frequently asked questions

Ideas for decorating this Dairy Milk cake

Gosh, there are so many options for decorating this Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate cake. Here are a few of my favourite daydreams on this subject:

• Add a layer of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate spread under the buttercream when sandwiching the cakes together.
• Make a little extra buttercream and add a thin layer around the edge of the cake then press Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Fingers into it.
• Snap several bars of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Caramel bars into pieces and wedge a rectangle into the top of each buttercream rosette in place of the Giant Buttons.
• Alternatively, if this cake is intended for a kid’s birthday party, insert a Freddo into each rosette instead.
• Unwrap your favourite flavours from a box of Cadbury’s Roses and use those to garnish the buttercream rosettes.
• Or pick a selection from a box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray and do likewise.
• Alternatively use the colourful Roses still in their wrappers and pile them up inside of the piped buttercream to turn this rustic looking cake into an eyecatching showstopper.
• Give the cake an Easter theme by garnishing it with Cadbury’s Mini Eggs or some mini Creme Eggs (these look especially good when cut open).

More amazing chocolate cakes

I have quite a bunch of chocolate cakes to pick from now. Whether you’re after something else lighter on the chocolate front or you’re looking for a full-blown hit of chocolate, there should be something to tempt you.

Have you made this Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate cake? I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know how you got along by leaving a comment or rating below – it would mean so much to me if you do. You can also show me your creation on Instagram by tagging me @jane_littlesugarsnaps.

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