Chocolate & Vanilla Traybake. - Recipe!

As if this year wasn’t filled with enough celebration did you know that today is World Chocolate Day! I have a great recipe for you, made with both Carr’s Flour's decadent chocolate and heavenly Victoria Sponge Cake mixes for a beautiful marble effect traybake, topped with a delicious buttercream icing.

With a wonderful marble texture created by combining the Victoria Sponge and Carr's Chocolate Cake Mixes, this delicious traybake is easy to make and looks just amazing. If you want to add a special touch to yours, you can pipe the blended frosting colours over the top using large round, star, and petal nozzles. Alternatively, you can keep it straightforward by simply adding blobs of icing in a mix all over the top and spreading it out to create a marble-like pattern that reflects the interior. Both ways are wonderful and just as tasty!

Serves: 16-20

Equipment needed:

Bowls and wooden spoons (or you can use an electric mixer for the frosting, if you prefer).

Piping bags and large piping nozzles (optional).

1 x traybake tin, greased and lined with baking paper on the bottom and sides.

Spoon or palette knife for spreading the icing and swirling the sponge flavours together.

Cooling rack.

Microwave safe bowl or saucepan & heatproof bowl for melting chocolate.

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

1 x Chocolate Cake Mix.

1 x Victoria Sponge Cake Mix.

Eggs as instructed by the cake mixes.

Water as instructed by the cake mixes.

Oil or butter as instructed by the cake mixes.

For the buttercream:

130g dark chocolate, melted and cooled.

250g butter, softened at room temperature.

2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste.

500g icing sugar, sifted.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190C (170C Fan/Gas Mark 5).

Mix the cake mixes according to the pack instructions, then spoon alternating blobs of the mix over the traybake tin. Use a knife or end of a spoon to drag through the flavours up and down and across the batter to create a marbled effect.

Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes until cake is cooked through, going golden arounds the edges and the centre is completely cooked through (Tip: Use a metal skewer or end of a sharp knife to push in the centre and it should come out dry and free of mixture when the cake is done). 

Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack and remove the paper. Leave to cool completely and get your frostings ready. 

For the buttercream, either melt the chocolate in the microwave or use a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Leave to cool.

Beat the butter and vanilla with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the icing sugar gradually, mixing in slowly to start with until all the powder has mixed into the butter, then beat well until very pale and creamy, beating between each addition until your buttercream is smooth and soft. 

Halve the mixture and pour in the cooled chocolate into one of the bowls and combine thoroughly. If you want to keep it simple, just add mixed blobs of the frosting onto the cooled cake and then use a spoon or knife to flatten and swirl it into a marbled pattern.

Alternatively, you can either pipe these two icings onto the cake with star, round or petal nozzles, or to give you three shades of frosting, take half of each flavour frosting out and mix together into a third bowl, to give you a lighter chocolate shade, then divide into any piping bags you like with mixed nozzles and pipe in a random style all over the cake as shown. 

Recipe created by Juliet Sear using Carr’s Flour’s new Cake Mixes. The full range is available to order from their online shop at Carrs Flour.