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Cakes

Chocolate Construction Cake

Preparation

1 hours 30 mins

Bake

30 mins

Difficulty

Hard

Servings

This Child's Construction Cake is a chocolate dream come true! With smooth chocolate icing, a playful chocolate finger fence, and crushed crumbs for "dirt," it’s a fun and edible building site. Top it off with your child’s favourite construction toys for a cake that's perfect for little diggers and builders!

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Ingredients
Method

Ingredients

CAKE

2 ⅔ cups plain flour (400g)
2 ½ cups Chelsea White Sugar (560g)
1 ¼ cups cocoa powder (100g)
1 Tbsp baking soda
½ Tbsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
3 eggs
2 cups milk (500ml)
¾ cup sunflower or canola oil (190ml)
1 Tbsp vanilla essence
1 cup boiling water

Icing

300g butter, softened
3 ⅔ cups Chelsea Icing Sugar (550g)
⅓ cup milk (80ml), divided
2 tsp vanilla essence
¾ cup cocoa powder (60g)
125g dark chocolate
2-3 drops green food colouring

To Decorate

200g chocolate finger biscuits
100g chocolate-filled sandwich cookies (i.e. chocolate Oreos), crushed into crumbs
Small toy construction vehicles Small toy construction worker and road signs/cones
Small toy trees (optional)

Reviews

1

What did you think of this recipe?

Rose Martin

Such a classic! We added a crane lifting a log which was adorable.

Method

Cake : Preheat oven to 160ºC fan bake / 180ºC bake. Lightly grease 3 x 20cm round cake tins and line with baking paper.

Place flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, eggs, milk, oil and vanilla in a food processor or large bowl. Process or beat with an electric mixer until well combined and smooth. Mix in boiling water (batter will be quite runny).

Pour into prepared tins (use kitchen scales if you can, to ensure mixture is divided evenly). Bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Place tins on wire cooling racks and leave cakes to cool completely.

Icing : Cream butter until pale. Add icing sugar, 1/4 cup milk (60ml) and vanilla. Beat on low speed to combine, then increase to high and beat until light and fluffy. Transfer a small portion (about 1/2 cup) of this icing to a bowl and set aside.

Sift cocoa powder into the larger quantity of icing and add remaining 20ml (4 teaspoons) milk. Beat in.

Place one of the cooled cake layers on a flat serving plate or cake board (at least 25cm diameter). Spread with a layer of chocolate icing. Top with remaining two cake layers, adding a layer of icing in between. Using an icing spatula, spread a thin layer of chocolate icing all over the outside of the cake. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roughly chop chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl. Microwave on low in 30 second bursts, stirring in between, until melted and smooth. Stir into remaining chocolate icing.

Use green food colouring to tint the small quantity of vanilla icing green (for grass). Transfer to a small piping bag fitted with a multi opening piping tip (Wilton #233).

Using an icing spatula, spread another layer of chocolate icing all over the outside of the cake. Spoon a chunk of cake out of the top edge (where the excavator will be working!). Cover the exposed cake with a layer of icing.

Decorate : Press chocolate fingers side by side around the outside of the cake. Trim a few of them so that the height is staggered around where the excavator is working.

Using the green icing, pipe a little grass on top of the cake, towards the back. Add crushed biscuits at the front and over the "excavated section'. Arrange construction vehicles, trees, workers and signs/cones on and around the cake.

Store in an airtight container in a cool room until ready to serve.

NOTES : Cake layers can be made up to 2 days in advance. Cake can be assembled up to 1 day in advance. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry room.

If you don't have a special grass piping tip, you can skip this step and add greenery through toy trees instead.