Yesterday, I shared the recipe for Florrie & Mohit’s main wedding cake: an 8-inch round, 2-layer chocolate cake, filled with a cardamom-infused buttercream and a homemade cherry jam, decorated with dark chocolate curls and fresh cherries.

Today, I’m sharing the recipe for the scaled up version of that cake: all the same flavours and components, just in a bigger, 13 x 9-inch rectangular cake. I made this cake for the wedding, to be kept in the kitchen and sliced once the main cake was cut, so that there was enough cake for all of the guests. This is an approach I’ve taken before, with the Orange & Olive Oil wedding cake I made last year. I think it’s really great, because it means the couple can have exactly what they want for their ‘official’ cake, without needing to worry about size/servings.

This is a big cake, so the recipe probably won’t be super useful to you if you’re looking for a gentle Saturday afternoon bake… However, sometimes you need a big cake (I’m thinking parties, events, large family gatherings?), so I wanted to share the share the recipe for this version with you as well!

Because this cake is exactly the same as yesterday’s recipe, I won’t be going through all of the ins-an-outs of the ingredients in this post. If you want to read about that, check out yesterday’s post! In this post, I’ll be focusing on the specifics of this particular size cake: working with large amounts of batter, handling bigger bakes and the logistics of scaling the recipe up to line up with your required servings.

Enough chit-chat: let’s make a ginormous chocolate cake!

A Note on Customising Serving Sizes

The recipe below makes 1 x 13 x 9-inch chocolate cake. Once the cake is cool, the top is levelled and the remaining cake is cut in half horizontally, leaving you with two separate cake layers.

Technically, the cake I made for Florrie & Mohit’s wedding was 1 + 1/2 of the recipe I’m sharing today, because I made it with three layers of cake (I made 2 cakes, cut each in half horizontally and used 3 of the resulting 4 layers). For ease, I’m just giving you the recipe for the single rectangular cake, with 2 layers, but you can adapt it to suit your required servings super easily.

For reference, the 2-layer version of this cake should yield about 50 wedding servings. The cake I made was designed to yield about 75 wedding servings. 2 x 2-layer cakes would yield about 100 servings, and so on.

Obviously, there is a limit to how many cake layers you can realistically stack on top of each other. Three layers was absolutely fine, but I probably wouldn’t push it too far past that. If you want 100 servings or more, I’d recommend making multiple cakes, each with 2-3 layers!

Whatever you’re doing, just remember to multiply up/down the buttercream and jam too, so that you have enough of it. For a three layer cake, you’ll need 1.5x the quantity of both buttercream and jam listed in the recipe.

Components

This rectangular cake is made up of 4 components:

• Chocolate cake layers
• Cardamom-infused buttercream
• Homemade cherry jam
• Handmade chocolate curls

All 4 of these components are exactly the same as the main cake: it’s the same chocolate cake batter, the same cardamom buttercream, the same cherry jam and the same chocolate curls— there’s just much, much more of each one!

Unlike the main cake, I didn’t bother putting fresh cherries on top of this cake, because it wasn’t on display and they were a more of a style-over-substance addition. Instead, I just covered the surface with as many chocolate curls (which have both style and substance) as I possibly could!

Making a 9 x 13-inch Chocolate Cake: The Differences

This cake is made using the exact same chocolate cake batter as yesterday’s round cake recipe, but, as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, is much bigger (not to mention rectangular!). Because of this, there are a few differences in the baking process between the two cakes:

• Oven temperature

This cake is baked at a lower temperature (150°C) than the 8-inch round cakes, which are baked at 180°C (both temperatures are conventional oven, not fan). This is a pretty standard rule for baking: the bigger the cake, the lower the temperature you bake it at to ensure it is cooked through.

• Baking time

Much like the oven temperature, the bake time changes based on the size of the cake too. This cake takes much longer to bake (90-95 minutes) compared to the 8-inch round cakes (50-55 minutes), because, again, it is so much larger (and because with the 8-inch cakes, the batter was divided between two tins. In this cake, it’s all in one, big tin, so the heat needs more time to permeate through it!).

• Lining the tin

This is mainly personal preference: for round cakes, I find that I usually only need to line the base of the tin with a circle of baking paper, after greasing the bottom and sides. For rectangular cakes, I tend to line the whole tin, base and sides, with the paper, just because it’s easier to cut the baking paper for and because it makes it easier to get the cake out of the corners. I still grease the whole tin with Stork (a margarine baking spread— but you can use softened butter instead) though!

• Releasing the air bubbles

This particular cake batter is a little prone to ‘tunnelling’, where large air bubbles bake into the cake and form these harmless, but kind of random, ‘crater-like’ holes. Truly, no one is going to notice them, but the perfectionist in me wants them gone, so I always tap the tins down on the work surface to help release the air.

The problem with this cake is that a) it’s very heavy, so it’s kind of hard to tap down and b) it’s big, so there’s even more space for air bubbles to form. Ultimately, with a cake this large, I find that it’s easier to give it a few taps (if you can manage), then run a blunt knife back and forth through the batter to pop any lingering bubbles. I know it sounds like a bit of a faff, but it really does help!

Assembling the Cake

In theory, this cake is assembled in exactly the same way as the main cake, so:

Cake + icing + jam + cake + icing + jam + chocolate curls

However, the process is a tiny bit different because of the size difference.

Just like with the main cake, you start by levelling the cake. For this, I levelled the domed top off, then cut the remaining cake in half horizontally, leaving me with two thinner layers of cake. It’s easier to get a clean cut if the cake has been chilled in the fridge (wrap it tightly with clingfilm to keep it fresh and moist), though this does make it a little harder to cut through, because the butter in the layers hardens up. Pick whichever way you prefer, but be aware that these layers will be a bit more fragile than the round ones, because of their increased surface area, so be careful when handling them!

You’re welcome to leave the domed top on, if you’d prefer. Just remember that you can’t add another layer of cake on top of that domed layer, or it won’t sit flat: if you’re keeping the dome, it needs to be at the top.

Then, spread on half of the icing.

Make sure it’s in a flat, even layer.

I wanted to make sure I had an even distribution of jam across the cake, so I made myself some guidelines using a blunt knife.

I added the jam along those lines (in a kind of haphazard manner, but the thought was there!).

Then I started my swirling by dragging the jam through the buttercream perpendicular to the original lines.

With a pretty even coverage established, I finished swirling the jam through the buttercream. I recommend swirling the jam in, instead of adding a whole layer of jam with a buttercream dam, because a) I think it’s nice to be able to see the jam once the cake is stacked up and b) it will make your cake much more stable.

Then, I added the second layer of cake and repeated the whole process, all over again.

Once you’ve added the icing and swirled in the jam, if you’re following the recipe below, you’ll be done and you can get on with decorating the cake (aka: throwing copious amount of chocolate curls on it).

However, if, like me, you’re making an extra tall cake, you’ll need to repeat the process all over again with a third layer of cake.

Then it’s time to decorate. As I mentioned, there are no fresh cherries on this one, because the cherries were more for the aesthetic on the main cake, so it’s all down to the chocolate curls. Again, just like with the main cake, the goal is to be exceedingly liberal: more is more!

And with that, your giant Chocolate, Cherry and Cardamom Cake is done! Just like the main cake, it can be stored at room temperature or in the fridge, preferably in an airtight container, where it will keep for a few days before it starts drying out.

Baking Giant Cakes 101

In case you still weren’t 100% sure, this cake is big.

Really big.

It’s weird, because a 13 x 9 inch tin doesn’t look that big, but somehow, when it’s filled with the (very heavy) chocolate cake batter… it seems bigger.

I remind you of this because I find that you kind of have to adjust your mindset when making big cakes like this. There are a few things you really need to consider ahead of time, otherwise everything’s going to start going south pretty quickly:

• Bowl sizes

You need a lot of batter to fill this tin. Because of that, you really need to use the biggest bowls you can find to make it! I’ll tell you now: the bowl of a KitchenAid stand mixer is not big enough. I had to crack out the big guns, the big bowl for this one.

Put your dry ingredients into the biggest bowl, because that’s the one that all the batter will be mixed in eventually. Whisk your wet ingredients together in your second biggest bowl (preferably one with a spout, for easy pouring!).

• Weight

This sounds silly, but this cake is heavy. It’s heavy before it goes into the oven and it’s heavy afterwards: it’s a dense, heavy cake (but, like, in a delicious way).

Be super careful when taking it in and out of the oven— make sure that you have a good grip on it and aren’t going to drop it all over your oven. If you happen to be baking with kids, this is definitely a job for an adult!

• Baking time

The cake takes a long time to bake: 90-95 minutes to be exact. It really does need that amount of time (and it’s at a relatively low temperature, 150°C, if that makes you feel any better about the energy usage…?) to ensure the cake is cooked through. On the bright side, that’s 90-95 minutes of completely passive work, which is always nice!

• Cooling time

As long as the cake takes to bake, it takes even longer to cool. Literally, hours. It’s big, it’s dense and it’s going to retain heat. Just be patient, keep it away from any pets/hungry family members, turn it out onto a wire rack once it’s cool enough to handle (probably about an hour or so), then leave it until it’s really, truly cold before icing/storing it in the fridge (wrapped in a tight layer of clingfilm, of course).

Recipe

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Chocolate, Cherry and Cardamom Cake (Rectangular Version)

A big, rich, chocolate sponge, filled with cardamom-infused buttercream and a homemade cherry jam, topped with fresh cherries and homemade dark chocolate curls.

Course Dessert

Cuisine German

Keyword Cake, Cardamom, Cherry, Chocolate

Prep Time 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Infusing Time 12 hours hours

Total Time 16 hours hours

Servings 50 wedding servings

Equipment

• 13 x 9 x 2 inch rectangular cake tin (see Note 1).

Ingredients

For the cardamom-infused milk:

• 45 cardamom pods
• 80 ml whole milk

For the chocolate cake layers

• Stork or softened butter, for greasing.
• 1 1/2 tbsp instant coffee granules (I used decaf).
• 450 ml boiling water
• 150 g cocoa powder (see Note 2).
• 210 g salted butter, diced.
• 600 g plain flour
• 690 g golden caster sugar
• 1 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 450 g buttermilk
• 180 g sunflower oil
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 eggs

For the cardamom buttercream:

• 400 g unsalted butter, room temperature.
• 800 g icing sugar, sifted.
• 6 tbsp cardamom-infused milk (see above).
• 1/4 tsp lemon juice
• 1 pinch fine sea salt

To assemble:

• 240 g cherry jam (approx. 1/2 of my Homemade Cherry Jam recipe- see Note 3).
• Dark chocolate curls (see Note 4).

Instructions

Infuse the milk for the buttercream:

• Bash the cardamom pods to crack open the pods. Place them in a heatproof container along with the milk and microwave for 10 seconds on high until the milk is hot. Cover, cool to room temperature, then leave in fridge overnight to infuse.
• The next day, strain the milk through a sieve, pressing down on the cardamom pods to extract as much flavour as possible. Discard the pods and keep the milk to use in the buttercream later.

Make the chocolate cake layers:

• Preheat the oven to 150°C (conventional, not fan). Grease a 9 x 13 x 2 inch cake tin with Stork (or softened butter) and line completely with baking paper. Set aside.
• Place the instant coffee granules into a medium bowl. Pour over the boiling water and stir to dissolve. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.
• Gradually add the diced butter to the hot cocoa mixture, whisking in each addition until all of the butter has been added and everything is smooth.
• Sift the flour, caster sugar and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Whisk together until well-combined, then set aside.
• Add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract to the warm cocoa mixture. Whisk until incorporated.
• The cocoa mixture should now be cool. Add the eggs and whisk thoroughly, until completely incorporated.
• Pour the cocoa mixture into the dry ingredients gradually, whisking all the time, until the batter is smooth and well-combined, with no lumps of flour.
• Pour the batter into the prepared tin. It will be pretty full, but it shouldn't overflow when baking. Firmly tap the tin down on the work surface a few times to help release any large air bubbles, then drag a blunt knife back and forth through the mixture a few times. This helps to prevent 'craters' from forming in the cake when it is baked (but don't worry too much— no one will notice once it's filled with icing anyway!).
• Bake the cake in the centre of the preheated oven for 90-95 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs. The cake will be very domed and the surface will be quite cracked— don't worry, that's how it's supposed to be!
• Leave the cake to cool in the tin for about an hour or so, then run a palette knife around the edge of the tin to loosen it before turning it out onto a wire rack. Allow the cake to cool completely before assembling (or wrapping tightly in clingfilm and storing)— this is a large, dense cake so it will take a long time to cool (like… 3-4 hours!).

Make the cardamom buttercream:

• Place the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high until smooth, fluffy and noticeably paler in colour.
• Turn the speed to low and gradually add the icing sugar, mixing all the time until it is incorporated.
• Add the cardamom-infused milk, lemon juice and sea salt and mix on low until incorporated.
• Turn the speed up to high and beat until light and fluffy. Use immediately or transfer to an airtight container and store in the fridge. The chilled icing should be brought to room temperature and given a gentle whip on low speed before using.

Assemble the cake:

• Start by levelling and splitting the cake. Use a cake leveller or serrated palette knife to trim the domed surface off the cake, then cut the cake in two horizontally. The cake layers will be a little fragile (because of their large surface area), so handle them with care.
• Spread a thin layer of buttercream on the serving board, and place one cake layer on top. Spread half of the remaining buttercream on top of the cake, then swirl half of the cherry jam through the icing.
• Place the second cake layer on top and spread the remaining buttercream on top of that layer. Swirl the remaining jam through the icing, then generously top with the chocolate curls, remembering that more is more!

Notes

This recipe makes a 2-layer rectangular cake. You can increase this to 3 or 4 layers by doubling the chocolate cake ingredients and baking a second cake, which is then cut into two layers, horizontally, like the first. For the wedding, I made two cakes, cut each in half and used 3 of the resulting 4 layers to get the right amount of servings.

Leftover cake can be stored in the freezer and defrosted overnight/warmed in the microwave for a delicious and easy sweet treat!

1. I used this tin from Silverwood.
2. Using really good cocoa powder will take your chocolate cake from amazing to absolutely incredible. My favourite is the Valrhona cocoa powder, but it is… very expensive. I did use it for this recipe (because I figure weddings deserve the best stuff!), but you can use a cheaper alternative if you prefer— your cake will still be delicious, just not quite as amazing!
3. You can find my Homemade Cherry Jam recipe here. If you’d prefer to use store-bought jam, that’s absolutely fine— just get the most delicious one you can find!
4. I made the curls for this cake using a 72% dark chocolate, which I think contrasts nicely with the sweet icing and brings out the chocolatey-ness of the cake. However, you can absolutely use whatever chocolate you prefer to make your curls! You can find my chocolate curl tutorial here.

In today’s post, I’m sharing the recipe for the main wedding cake: a 2-layer, 8-inch round chocolate cake filled with a cardamom-infused buttercream and homemade cherry jam, then decorated with dark chocolate curls and fresh cherries.

Let’s not hang around— it’s chocolate cake time!

Components

This cake is made up of 5 individual components:

• Chocolate Cake

I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe for this cake: it’s intensely chocolatey, incredibly moist and super stable, so it’s great for wedding/celebration cakes like this that need to be made in advance. I developed this recipe for my brother’s wedding cake and it has become one of my most popular recipes here on the blog!

The original recipe was for a 10-inch round cake, but I’ve scaled it down here to make an 8-inch version.

• Cardamom Buttercream

This is a classic, American buttercream made with cardamom-infused milk, which adds a really subtle, earthy spice. I opted to infuse the milk with cardamom pods, rather than add ground cardamom directly to the icing, because I didn’t want the icing to be dappled with the little flecks of cardamom. However, you could absolutely skip the infusing step and add a small amount of ground cardamom instead, if you prefer.

• Cherry Jam

I used a homemade cherry jam for this, because I wanted the cake to be extra special, but there are some lovely ready-made cherry jams available, so you could absolutely use one of those instead to make things a little easier!

You’ll only need about 1/4 of a batch of my Homemade Cherry Jam recipe, so you can either scale it down or keep the rest for toast, scones, porridge, etc.

• Dark Chocolate Curls

These dark chocolate curls are SO easy to make, but they look pretty fancy and really elevate the cake. All you need is a bar of chocolate and a large, sharp knife! Check out yesterday’s post for the tutorial.

• Fresh Cherries

A handful of fresh cherries are placed on top of the cake as a super easy and simple decoration. The cherries just need to be washed and dried completely before you use them.

Ingredients

To make the cake batter, you will need the following ingredients:

• Instant coffee granules

I use decaf coffee here, but caffeinated coffee will also work. You won’t be able to taste the coffee, it just enhances the chocolate-y flavour.

• Boiling water

Boiling water is used to dissolve the instant coffee granules, bloom the cocoa powder (adding a hot liquid to cocoa helps it to release its flavour) and dissolve the butter. The water should be freshly boiled, so that it’s still nice and hot, to accomplish all of this.

• Cocoa powder

I hate to say it, but the type of cocoa powder you use makes a huge difference! Ideally, you want a rich, dark cocoa powder that has been ‘dutched’ (a process where the cocoa is alkalised to reduce the natural acidity), because this will give you the most intense, chocolatey flavour. Unfortunately, the best quality cocoa powders can be very expensive, so you do have to weigh up the flavour vs the price. A chocolate cake made with the best cocoa powder will be absolutely amazing, while a chocolate cake made with a regular, run-of-the-mill cocoa powder will still be good (it is chocolate cake, after all), just not quite so incredible.

My favourite is the very expensive, but absolutely incredible, Valrhona cocoa powder, which is what I used for this cake. However, there seems to have been a bit of a mass shortage of this cocoa powder over the past 6 months or so, so it can be a bit tricky to obtain. By the looks of it, it’s coming back onto the market a bit more readily now (you can buy it here, on Amazon), which is a big relief!

• Salted butter

Salt is an important ingredient in chocolate cake because, like coffee, it helps to bring out the chocolate-y flavour of the cocoa. Instead of adding salt manually, I just use salted butter for this recipe and I find that it incorporates just the right amount of salt!

• Plain flour

Don’t use self-raising flour here, or the ratio of the raising agents will be thrown off.

• Caster sugar

I used golden caster sugar, because I prefer using that in my cakes (I think it gives a nicer flavour), but white caster sugar would also work.

• Bicarbonate of soda

This is the only raising agent in the cake. Don’t use baking powder— it needs to be baking soda (i.e. bicarbonate of soda).

• Buttermilk

Buttermilk helps to keep the case really moist, which is perfect for a wedding cake like this, when you want to make it ahead of time but don’t want it to dry out!

• Sunflower oil

Using butter and oil as the fat in the cake means you get the superior flavour of the butter and the increased moisture from the oil, so it’s the best of both worlds!

• Vanilla extract

Much like coffee and salt, vanilla also enhances the flavour of the chocolate. The aim is not for the cake to taste like vanilla, but for it to taste even more like chocolate.

• Eggs

I use large eggs.

To make the icing, and to fill/decorate the cake, you will need:

• Whole milk

You can use skimmed/semi-skimmed milk, but whole milk will give you a richer, creamier buttercream.

• Cardamom pods

I’ve used the whole pods for this recipe, because I didn’t want my buttercream to be speckled with the ground spice. If you prefer, you can skip the pods and the infusing step and just add a little ground cardamom to your icing instead.

• Unsalted butter

I like to use unsalted butter for buttercream, so that I am able to control the amount of salt.

• Icing sugar

Make sure to sift the icing sugar first, because it can get quite clumpy.

• Lemon juice

American buttercream can be very sweet. To mellow out that sweetness a little bit, I added a very small amount of lemon juice. The tartness of the lemon balances out the sweetness of all the sugar, making the buttercream a little more rounded.

• Salt

Just like the lemon juice, I added a small amount of salt to the buttercream, just to temper the sweetness a little. It’s important to use a fine salt here so that it doesn’t affect the texture of the buttercream.

• Cherry jam

I used my Homemade Cherry Jam for this, which I specifically developed to be full of cherry flavour and have quite a firm set, so that it works well in a layer cake. If you want to skip the extra step of making jam, you can absolutely use a shop-bought jar— just try and find a really delicious one!

• Dark chocolate curls

I used a 72% dark chocolate to make the curls for this cake. You can find my tutorial on how to make the curls here.

• Cherries

I’ve decorated this cake with a handful of fresh cherries. I used black cherries for this, because I think that they’re the prettiest (and they tend to be the most readily available cherries here in the UK!).

Chocolate Cake Layers

This cake uses a scaled-down version of my favourite chocolate cake recipe. It’s a super chocolate-y, super moist cake that keeps really well, so it’s perfect for wedding cakes.

The original recipe was for a 3-layer, 10-inch round cake. For that cake, I made each layer separately, because I can only fit one 10-inch tin in my oven at a time. For this cake, you need 2 x 8-inch layers, which you fortunately can bake at the same time in a standard oven!

The process for making the batter itself is exactly the same and I have a photo tutorial in my ‘The Chocolate Tier’ post from the first Wedding Cake Week, if you’d like to check out the in-depth instructions!

8-inch Cake vs 10-inch Cake

The only differences that you need to be aware of with this cake (compared to the original ‘Chocolate Tier’ recipe) all stem from the change in size:

• Tin size

For this version, you’ll need 2 x 8-inch round tins.

• Oven temperature

The 8-inch cakes are baked at 180°C (conventional, not fan). This is because the cakes are smaller, so they can be baked at a higher temperature.

• Bake time

The cakes take 50-55 minutes to bake, which is ever so slightly less time than the 10-inch cake (though the oven is more full, because we’re baking two at a time, so it kind of balances out!).

• Batter quantity

Despite the fact we’re making fewer, smaller layers than the original recipe, the batter quantity at the start is actually greater, because we’re making both 8-inch cakes at once, as opposed to making each 10-inch layer individually. All this means is that you need to use both a bigger jug (for the wet ingredients) and a bigger bowl (for the dry ingredients)! I actually used a large bowl with a spout instead of a jug for the wet ingredients, to make sure I had plenty of room for whisking.

A Note on Cracking

This chocolate cake recipe is really delicious: it’s super chocolate-y, moist and structurally strong, making it a perfect option for layer cakes. However, it is unusual in that it is specifically baked to form a super cracked top, which I know can be disconcerting, because we’ve all been taught that the cracking/volcano-esque explosion is persona non grata when it comes to cakes! You just have to trust me on this one though— it’s what makes this cake so great!

Typically, cakes form large cracks for one of two reasons: either the oven temperature is too hot or the batter contains too much raising agent. I’ve tested this recipe many, many times, using less bicarbonate of soda and varying lower oven temperatures and it simply does not work as well: the cake still cracks and the crumb just ends up kind of gummy (ew…) or too dry. With this method, yes, you get cracks, but the interior of the cake is perfectly cooked and perfectly moist, and you’ll be trimming off the cracked parts anyway, so it’s definitely my preferred approach.

Making the Cake Layers in Advance

These cake layers are great for making in advance, because they stay super moist. For best results, wrap each individual layer tightly with clingfilm. This will keep the edges of the cakes from being exposed to the air and drying out.

You can store the wrapped cakes at room temperature or in the fridge. If you’re making your cakes in a hot environment (like I was, thanks to the heatwave!), I’d recommend storing them in the fridge to keep them as fresh as possible. Cold cakes are also easier to level neatly, so that’s a plus! If you’re making the cakes in cooler weather, they’ll be absolutely fine at room temperature for a couple of days.

Cardamom Buttercream

This buttercream is a simple, American-style buttercream. To get the cardamom flavour, milk is infused with cardamom pods overnight, then strained the next morning and added to the buttercream.

This icing can be made in advance (which is very handy when you’re making a wedding cake!). Once you’ve made the buttercream, transfer it to an airtight container and store it in the fridge. It will last for about a week. You just need to let the icing come to room temperature and give it a gentle beat with the mixer on low speed before you use it.

Infusing the Milk

Start by bashing the cardamom pods with the end of a rolling pin (or a similar, heavy object/mortar and pestle). The aim is just to crack the pods open and expose the seeds.

Heat the milk in the microwave for about 10 seconds on high, until it is hot. If you don’t have a microwave, you can warm the milk in a small saucepan.

Pour the milk over the cardamom pods, cover and leave to cool to room temperature before transferring to the fridge to chill and infuse overnight.

The next morning, strain the milk through a fine sieve, pressing down on the cardamom pods to extract as much flavour as possible.

The cardamom pods can now be discarded. Thank you for your service, pods! The cardamom-infused milk is now ready to be used in the buttercream.

Making the Buttercream

Place the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment. The butter needs to be at room temperature (or softened ever so slightly), so that it will whip up evenly.

Beat the butter on medium-high speed until it is smooth, fluffy and noticeably paler in colour, like this.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then turn the speed down to low and gradually add in the sifted icing sugar, mixing all the time until everything is well-incorporated. The icing will be very stiff at this point, but don’t worry— we’re about to add the milk!

Add the cardamom-infused milk, lemon juice and salt and mix in on low speed until everything is combined, then turn the mixer up to high speed and beat the buttercream until it is light and fluffy.

At this point, you can either use the icing immediately or transfer it to an airtight container to be stored in the fridge for another day.

If your buttercream looks slightly split, don’t worry! I find this can happen when you add lemon juice to buttercream, but it’s easily remedied. Just place a spoonful of the icing into a microwaveable bowl, and heat it for 10-15 seconds on high until it has melted. Pour the melted icing back into the bowl with the rest of the buttercream, then mix it in on the lowest speed, until everything is smooth and emulsified. This technique also helps to get rid of air bubbles, making your buttercream super silky!

Assembly

With the chocolate cakes baked, the cardamom buttercream made and the cherry jam, chocolate curls and fresh cherries to hand, it’s time to assemble!

Levelling the Cake Layers

My chocolate cake recipe bakes up quite domed, so the layers do need to be levelled before you can stack them up. Actually, I only levelled one of the cake layers for this cake— I left the dome on the top cake so that I could achieve the look of a big pile of icing on top without needing to use a ridiculous amount of buttercream that would overpower the rest of the cake.

To level the bottom cake layer, I used a cake leveller. If you’re better than me at cutting in a straight, horizontal line, feel free to use a large, serrated knife instead! The aim is to be left with a perfectly flat surface, but to cut off as little cake as possible (though any cake you do cut off can be snacked on as you work so… maybe that’s not wholly necessary!).

Even though I didn’t level the top cake layer, I did use a small, serrated knife to carve away some of the sharper edges around the cracks on the surface. This isn’t strictly necessary, but those edges can be a little bit crispy and I wanted to keep the texture of the cake as consistent as possible. This also helped to smooth out the domed shape of the cake, making the ‘pile’ of icing look a little more perfect.

Layering Up

Once the cake layers are ready to go, it’s time to stack them up with the delicious fillings!

I always use a little smear of buttercream to stick the first cake layer to the cake board. This just makes it easier to move the cake around without it slipping and sliding everywhere (which is particularly important when, like this one, the cake needs to be transported to a venue).

Place half of the cardamom buttercream on top of the first cake layer.

Then use an offset spatula to spread the icing out evenly. It doesn’t need to be perfect— in fact, with this style, I actually think imperfect is better!

Dollop half of the cherry jam on top of the icing, allowing some to drip over the edges so that you can see it when the cake is assembled. Use a blunt knife to ripple the jam through the buttercream. Doing this not only means that every slice gets some of the cherry jam, but also ensures that the cake is nice and stable, because there is still lots of contact between the buttercream and the next cake layer.

Add the second, domed cake layer on top, making sure it is centred.

Top that with the remaining buttercream, again, spreading it out with an offset spatula.

Add the remaining cherry jam and swirl it through the buttercream, just like before.

Now it’s time to decorate! I had some pretty big drips of cherry jam on the serving board, so I cleaned those up first.

Then, position the fresh cherries on top. Make sure you’ve washed and thoroughly dried the cherries before adding them. I put one cherry in the centre and then arranged six others around the edge.

Once the cherries are stuck on, you can add the chocolate curls. I am firmly of the opinion that more is more here, so be as liberal with the curls as you can!

With that, the cake is ready!

Storage Instructions

The cake can be stored at room temperature or in the fridge, ideally in an airtight container, to help stop it from drying out. It will keep for 2-3 days before it starts drying out a little (remember that the sides of the cake are undecorated and, as a result, exposed to the air, which will cause it to dry out quicker!).

If the weather is warm, I would recommend storing it in the fridge. This will keep it fresher, but it will also ensure that the buttercream stays firm and the cake doesn’t start slipping around. However, the cake is best enjoyed at room temperature, so make sure to take it out of the fridge an hour or so before you plan to serve it.

Recipe

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Chocolate, Cherry and Cardamom Cake

A rich, chocolate sponge, filled with cardamom-infused buttercream and a homemade cherry jam, topped with fresh cherries and dark chocolate curls.

Course Dessert

Cuisine German

Keyword Cardamom, Cherry, Chocolate

Prep Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 55 minutes minutes

Infusing Time 12 hours hours

Total Time 14 hours hours 25 minutes minutes

Servings 24 wedding servings (approx. 10-12 regular servings)

Equipment

• 2 x 8-inch round sandwich tins

Ingredients

For the cardamom-infused milk:

• 35 cardamom pods
• 60 ml whole milk

For the chocolate cake layers:

• Stork or softened butter, for greasing.
• 1 tbsp instant coffee granules (I used decaf).
• 300 ml boiling water
• 100 g cocoa powder (see Note 1).
• 140 g salted butter, diced.
• 400 g plain flour
• 460 g golden caster sugar
• 1/2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
• 300 g buttermilk
• 120 g sunflower oil
• 1/8 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs

For the cardamom buttercream:

• 300 g unsalted butter, room temperature.
• 600 g icing sugar, sifted.
• 4 tbsp cardamom-infused milk (see above).
• 1/4 tsp lemon juice
• 1 pinch fine sea salt

To assemble:

• 120 g cherry jam (approx. 1/4 of my Homemade Cherry Jam recipe, see Note 2.)
• 7 fresh black cherries, washed and dried.
• Dark chocolate curls (see Note 3).

Instructions

Infuse the milk for the buttercream:

• Bash the cardamom pods to crack open the pods. Place them in a heatproof container along with the milk and microwave for 10 seconds on high until the milk is hot. Cover, cool to room temperature, then leave in fridge overnight to infuse.
• The next day, strain the milk through a sieve, pressing down on the cardamom pods to extract as much flavour as possible. Discard the pods and keep the milk to use in the buttercream later.

Make the chocolate cake layers:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (conventional, not fan). Grease two 8-inch round sandwich tins and line each with a circle of baking paper. Set aside.
• Place the instant coffee granules into a medium bowl. Pour over the boiling water and stir to dissolve. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.
• Gradually add the diced butter to the hot cocoa mixture, whisking in each addition until all of the butter has been added and everything is smooth.
• Sift the flour, caster sugar and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Whisk together until well-combined, then set aside.
• Add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract to the warm cocoa mixture. Whisk until incorporated.
• The cocoa mixture should now be cool. Add the eggs and whisk thoroughly until completely incorporated.
• Pour the cocoa mixture into the dry ingredients gradually, whisking all the time, until the batter is smooth and well-combined, with no lumps of flour.
• Divide the batter evenly between the two tins. They will be pretty full, but they shouldn't overflow when baking. Firmly tap each tin down on the work surface a few times to help release any large air bubbles. This helps to prevent 'craters' from forming in the cakes when they are baked (but don't worry too much— no one will notice them once they're filled with icing anyway!).
• Bake the cakes in the centre of the preheated oven for 50-55 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs. The cakes will be very domed and the surface will be quite cracked— don't worry, that's how it's supposed to be!
• Leave the cakes to cool in the tins for 20 minutes or so, then run a palette knife around the edge of the tins to loosen them before turning them out onto a wire rack. Allow the cakes to cool completely before assembling (or wrapping tightly in clingfilm and storing).

Make the cardamom buttercream:

• Place the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high until smooth, fluffy and noticeably paler in colour.
• Turn the speed to low and gradually add the icing sugar, mixing all the time until it is incorporated.
• Add the cardamom-infused milk, lemon juice and sea salt and mix on low until incorporated.
• Turn the speed up to high and beat until light and fluffy. Use immediately or transfer to an airtight container and store in the fridge. The chilled icing should be brought to room temperature and given a gentle whip on low speed before using.

Assemble the cake:

• Level the top of one of the cake layers so that it is completely flat. Use a small, serrated knife to gently carve away any particularly sharp cracks on the surface of the other cake, leaving the domed surface intact.
• Use a smear of buttercream to stick the levelled cake layer to the serving board. Spread half of the buttercream on top of the cake, then swirl half of the cherry jam through the icing.
• Place the second, domed cake layer on top and spread the remaining buttercream on top of that layer. Swirl the remaining jam through the icing, then arrange the fresh cherries on top. Generously top with the chocolate curls, remembering that more is more!

Notes

1. Using really good cocoa powder will take your chocolate cake from amazing to absolutely incredible. My favourite is the Valrhona cocoa powder, but it is… very expensive. I did use it for this recipe (because I figure weddings deserve the best stuff!), but you can use a cheaper alternative if you prefer— your cake will still be delicious, just not quite as amazing!
2. You can find the recipe for my Homemade Cherry Jam here.
3. I made the curls for this cake using a 72% dark chocolate, which I think contrasts nicely with the sweet icing and brings out the chocolatey-ness of the cake. You can of course use whatever chocolate you prefer to make your curls! You can find my chocolate curl tutorial here.

Yesterday, I shared the recipe for my Homemade Cherry Jam, which is used to fill and decorate the cake. Today, I’ll be talking all about how I made the chocolate curl decorations: there’s no tempering and no melting, so it’s a really quick and easy process!

I can’t take credit for this technique— I learned it from ✨Jamie Oliver✨, but I’m pretty sure it’s a classic chef technique? Nevertheless, I did want to share it with you, along with the tips & tricks that I picked up during my own curl-making process. However, if you’re more of a visual learner, you can find the video tutorial on the Jamie Oliver YouTube channel!

What You’ll Need

To make these chocolate curls, you only really need two items:

• A bar of dark chocolate

Obviously, the main thing to look for when you’re choosing your chocolate is the flavour: a good chocolate will make the most delicious chocolate curls! However, for this particular technique, it’s also important that the bar has a large, flat surface, like this one.

• A large knife

You’ll need a knife with a large, flat-edged blade that you can drag across the surface of the chocolate evenly. If you don’t have a large knife, a kitchen bench scraper would also work.

While those two items are the only essentials, I also recommend using two chopping boards, one large one as a base and one smaller one (that can fit on top of the larger one), as a barrier. This will just make the process a lot easier (and prevent you and your clothes from getting too messy!).

The Technique

First, you need to set up your workspace. Place the large chopping board in front of you on the work surface, then set the smaller chopping board on top of that larger board, positioning it at the end closest to you, like above.

Then, unwrap the chocolate bar and place it flat side up, with one of the short ends pushed up again that smaller chopping board.

Allow the edges of both chopping boards to push against your lower abdomen. This will provide resistance, which will allow you to make the curls without the bar of chocolate flying across your kitchen! You can do this without the extra chopping board ‘backstop’, as Jamie Oliver and Kerryann Dunlop (from the YouTube video) both do, but you then run the risk of getting your clothes all chocolate-y which… is not for me! I found that the extra chopping board worked well for me, but choose whichever method works best for you. The aim is just to stop the bar of chocolate from moving around as you make the curls.

Rest the blade against the surface of the chocolate, at about a 45° angle. You can adjust this angle to change the size/shape of your curls a little, but 45° is a good starting point!

Hold the dull side of the blade of the knife with one hand on each end. Obviously, you’re working with a knife here, so be careful, but at no point should your fingers be close to the sharp edge of the blade itself.

Apply an even pressure and carefully drag the knife down the length of the chocolate bar. As you drag, you’ll see the curl forming!

Repeat this process until you have as many curls as you need (or until your chocolate bar gets so thin that it breaks— whichever’s first!). I find it easiest to transfer the curls to a container as I go, otherwise I think everything gets a bit overcrowded, but do whatever works for you.

The curls can be stored in a cool place at room temperature, just like a regular chocolate bar. Don’t leave them in a super warm/sunny spot, or they’ll just melt together, but, as long as the weather’s cool enough, they don’t need to be stored in the refrigerator.

Variations

In my chocolate-scraping endeavours, I found that the temperature of the chocolate bar had a big effect on the finished size, shape and colour of the curls:

• Colour

Slightly warmer chocolate creates curls with a darker colour, more similar to the original colour of the chocolate bar. Cold chocolate creates curls that have a slight ‘bloom’ to them, which dulls the colour.

• Shape

Cold chocolate makes stronger, more defined curls. Slightly warmer chocolate makes less defined curls, but they can be gently nudged back into a proper curl shape.

• Texture

Slightly warmer chocolate creates smooth curls. Cold chocolate creates curls with a more jagged surface, showing off the hitches of the knife during the ‘dragging’ process.

• Size

Slightly warmer chocolate makes slightly longer curls, while cold chocolate makes slightly shorter curls.

For reference, I tried this technique with three different temperature chocolate bars: the first bar was at room temperature during a 30°C+ heatwave (the temperature it was when I made this wedding cake— can you believe it?!), the second bar was right out of the fridge and the third bar was at a pretty humid, but otherwise gentle, summery room temperature (about 22°C).

The fridge-cold bar was the easiest to work with, but I wasn’t happy with how much the colour of the chocolate was dulled down. The heatwave bar made the darkest, prettiest curls, but they were a bit more fiddly to make. The 22°C bar was somewhere in between the two. I found that the colder the chocolate was, the more I had to increase my angle (bring the knife closer to 90°) to get the curls. I assume that there’s a scientific reason for this, but I’m a linguist at heart, so who knows? My favourite were definitely the curls I made during the heatwave, which were the ones I used for this wedding cake.

However, because it was a heatwave, I did spread the curls out onto trays lined with baking paper and give them a blast in the fridge after I made them, just to make sure they didn’t melt! After an hour or so in the fridge, I transferred them to an airtight container, where they sat at (a still very warm!) room temperature perfectly happily, so make of that what you will!

And that is everything I learned while making the chocolate curls for the top of the wedding cake! I love this method: I think the curls look so professional and fancy, but they are so, unbelievably easy to make!

Gemma

xxx

If you missed yesterday’s post, I recently made another wedding cake (my third overall!) and I’m sharing all of the recipes/behind-the-scenes info with you this week!

This time around, the cake in question was a Cherry, Chocolate and Cardamom Layer Cake: a rich chocolate sponge, filled with a cardamom buttercream and homemade cherry jam, then decorated with heaps of chocolate curls and fresh cherries.

In today’s post, I’m sharing the recipe for the Homemade Cherry Jam! Making your own jam isn’t strictly necessary for the cake: if you’re short on time, or want to make the process a bit quicker/easier for yourself, you can absolutely use a good, store-bought cherry jam (insert Ina Garten meme here)— I recommend looking for one made with morello cherries for the most delicious results! However, if you have time, making your own jam is pretty straightforward and makes your cake extra special (and extra delicious!).

Using Jam as a Cake Filling

Jam is a super common cake filling (Victoria Sponge, I’m looking at you!), but it can be a little tricky to work with when you’re aiming for a super stable finished product. While jam is very sticky (all that sugar!), it’s more… slippery?… than buttercream, which can lead to your cake layers sliding a bit if you use too much of it to sandwich the layers (a little bit like lemon curd… which, if you were here for the last Wedding Cake Week, you’ll know is my ultimate nemesis!).

To avoid this problem, particularly because the cake had quite a long distance to travel to get to its destination, I opted to swirl the jam into the buttercream: you still get all the flavour of the jam, but it’s the buttercream that’s doing the heavy work keeping the cake upright, so you’ve got the best of both worlds!

This is a chunky jam, but the chunk is controlled: instead of a more natural-style jam, where the cherries break up a little, but not completely, as it cooks, I’ve made a smooth jam and then added diced cherries to it part of the way through the cooking process. There were two main reasons for this: aesthetics and taste. The smoother jam (with intentional chunks) looked a lot better on the cake, while the added pieces of cherry really amplified the overall flavour. If you’d prefer to make a more natural-style jam, though, go for it— it will still taste lovely!

Ingredients

To make this homemade cherry jam, you will need the following ingredients:

• Frozen cherries

I like to use frozen cherries, because they’re available year-round and I find them more convenient. I prefer to buy the darker cherries, because I think they give the jam a better colour, but as long as they’re pitted, any type will do.

• Dried cherries

Cherries have quite a subtle flavour so, to amp up the intensity of this jam, I use a small amount of dried cherries alongside the fresh fruit.

• Caster sugar

I like to use white caster sugar when making jam, because I find that golden caster sugar adds too much of a caramel flavour and is more prone to burning.

• Lemon juice

Cherries are pretty low in pectin, so I add a little bit of lemon juice to help the jam set properly. The tartness of the lemon juice also helps to balance the sweetness of the jam, so it’s a win-win!

• Water

The water is just there to help everything melt and cook together into a delicious jam.

How to Make Homemade Cherry Jam

Before you start making the jam, place a small plate into the freezer. This will be used later on to check whether the jam is ready or not.

To make the jam, put all of the ingredients into a large saucepan and place it over a medium heat.

Stir the mixture every now and then until the sugar has completely dissolved and the frozen cherries have defrosted— you should be able to squish them pretty easily with a wooden spoon.

Use a slotted spoon to remove about 1/3 of the cherries (just the frozen ones, not the dried ones) from the mixture and transfer them to a chopping board. Set them aside to cool slightly.

Use a stick blender (or whatever blender you have, really) to purée the remaining mixture in the saucepan, aiming to get the jam as smooth as possible.

Strain the puréed jam mixture through a heatproof sieve into a clean saucepan, using the back of a spoon to push as much of the pulp through the sieve as you can.

Finely dice the reserved cherries (they should be cool enough to handle now!), then stir them into the strained jam mixture. This method allows you to control the size of the cherry chunks, while still ensuring that the jam base is perfectly thick and smooth.

Set the pan back over medium heat and bring the mixture to a rolling boil, stirring gently every so often.

Once the mixture reaches a rolling boil, keep it on the heat and monitor the temperature. I tend to use a digital probe thermometer for this, because I find it the most accurate and easy to use, but a regular candy thermometer would also work.

You might find that a layer of foam starts forming on the surface of the jam as it cooks— use a spoon to skim as much of it off as you can, but don’t worry about it too much!

When the jam reaches 105-110°C, remove the pan from the heat and grab your plate from the freezer. Place a small spoonful of jam onto the cold plate and leave it for 1 minute. After 1 minute, push the jam gently with your finger. If the surface wrinkles, your jam is ready! If it doesn’t wrinkle, return the plate to the freezer and the pan to heat for a further minute, then test it again. Repeat this process until the jam wrinkles.

Once the jam is ready, pour it into a heatproof container. Cover it with clingfilm or a lid, then allow it to cool to room temperature before transferring it to the fridge, where it can chill until you’re ready to use it.

Troubleshooting

Making jam isn’t hard, but it can feel a bit overwhelming at first! The main difficulty is getting the right set on it and, while it doesn’t need to be perfect, there are a couple of things you can do if you run into problems.

If your jam is too liquid:

The most likely culprit for this is that the jam was not boiled to the correct temperature: it needs to hit at least 105°C, at which point it should ‘pass’ the wrinkle test on the frozen plate. If your jam is too liquid, you can put it back on the heat and boil it again, testing it every minute or so until it passes that test.

Your jam will also stay more liquid if you omit the lemon from the recipe. Cherries don’t contain much pectin, which is what helps jam to set. Lemons, on the other hand, contain lots of pectin, so the juice is not just a flavour-based addition here: it’s a vital ingredient!

If your jam is too firmly set:

This jam recipe was specifically designed as a cake filling, so it is a little more firmly set than your average jam. You’ll probably find that, once it’s been chilled in the fridge, it is too firm to work with: that’s what you want! It gives you the ability to warm it up slightly, work with it, then let it firm back up to give your cake more structure and stability.

To get your jam to working temperature, warm it for 10 seconds in the microwave. It will be perfectly drizzle-able!

Recipe

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Homemade Cherry Jam

A homemade jam, made with frozen and dried cherries, perfect for filling a cake.

Course Component

Keyword Cherry, Jam

Prep Time 45 minutes minutes

Total Time 45 minutes minutes

Servings 475 grams

Equipment

• Handheld blender (or your preferred blending device)
• Digital probe thermometer (see Note 1)

Ingredients

• 600 g frozen cherries, pitted.
• 120 g dried cherries
• 320 g white caster sugar
• 2 tsp lemon juice, freshly-squeezed.
• 60 ml water

Instructions

• Before you start making the jam, put a small plate into the freezer. This will be used for testing the consistency of the jam later on.
• Place all of the ingredients into a large saucepan and cook on medium heat, stirring every now and then, until the frozen cherries have defrosted and the sugar has dissolved.
• Use a slotted spoon or tongs to remove about a third of the frozen cherries (not the dried cherries) from the mixture and set aside on a chopping board to cool slightly.
• Use the handheld blender to purée the jam, making it as smooth as possible.
• Strain the mixture through a sieve into a clean saucepan, using the back of a spoon to push as much of the pulp through as possible.
• Finely dice the reserved cherries, then add them to the strained jam mixture in the new pan.
• Set the pan over medium heat and bring the jam to a rolling boil, stirring gently. Use a metal spoon to remove as much foam as possible from the surface of the jam as it cooks.
• Use a thermometer to monitor the temperature of the jam as it boils. Once it reaches between 105-110°C, remove the pan from the heat and grab the plate from the freezer.
• Place a small spoonful of jam onto the frozen plate, let it sit for 1 minute, then gently push the jam with your finger. If the jam wrinkles, it's ready. If not, return the plate to the freezer and the pan to the heat. Boil the jam for a further minute, then test again. Repeat this until it passes the 'wrinkle test'.
• Once the jam is ready, pour it into a heatproof container. Cover and leave to cool to room temperature before placing into the fridge until ready to use.
• The jam will firm up significantly in the fridge. If it is too firm to use when it first comes out of the fridge, just give it a 10 second blast in the microwave to thin it back out a little.

Notes

1. You can use a regular candy thermometer for this, but I prefer to use a digital probe thermometer, like this one, because I think it is easier to use and gives a more precise measurement. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can still make this jam, you’ll just need to rely more heavily on the ‘wrinkle test’ to check if it’s ready!

If you’re new here, I am by no means a professional baker, but I did stumble into the world of wedding cake baking last year, when I made the cake for my brother’s wedding (a deconstructed, three-tier, chocolate, coffee & lemon cake that you can find here!). I then fell even further down the wedding cake rabbit hole later on in the year, when I made an Orange & Olive Oil cake for a family friend’s big day!

Before this year, then, the number of wedding cakes I had made was a grand total of… 2. Over the last month, that total has doubled, because from mid-August to mid-September, I made another two wedding cakes! After my brother’s wedding, a couple of his friends asked me to make their wedding cakes (SO exciting!!) and I got to working on the designs & recipes straight away. Both weddings have now taken place, vows have been made and cakes have been sliced, so I can finally share the recipes with you!

So, with that…

Welcome to Wedding Cake Week: Season 2!

Over the next 4 days, I’ll be sharing all of the recipes, techniques and behind-the-scenes info for the first of the wedding cakes: the Chocolate, Cherry and Cardamom cake that I made for Florrie and Mohit.

This cake was inspired by a recipe created by Meera Sodha for a chocolate cake that is filled with a cardamom & mascarpone cream icing and cherry jam. My version is made using my all-time favourite chocolate cake recipe (the one I developed for my brother’s wedding cake!), a cardamom-infused American buttercream, a homemade cherry jam and an abundance of chocolate curls (which, as it turns out, are incredibly easy to make at home!).

Tuesday: Homemade Cherry Jam Recipe

Wednesday: Easy Chocolate Curls

Thursday: Chocolate, Cherry and Cardamom Cake Recipe

Friday: Chocolate, Cherry and Cardamom Cake (The Rectangular Version) Recipe

A little note: because we’ll be deep in chocolate curls on Wednesday, there won’t be a WIP Wednesday post this week! Don’t worry though, you won’t be missing anything— in Week 4 of making my Porcelain Sweater, I knit a grand total of… 6 rows of rib. Check back in next week for some more interesting progress (hopefully!).

Florrie & Mohit specifically requested a simple, 8-inch round cake as their main cake, so, to ensure that there was plenty of cake to go round all of their friends and family, I also made a bigger, rectangular version of the cake that could be sliced in the kitchen and served to the guests once the main cake had been cut (kind of like a loaves-and-fishes situation, where the cake just miraculously keeps coming!).

I used this approach with my last wedding cake and I think it’s a really neat way of doing things because it gives you SO much more flexibility with the size of the main cake. Because of this, you guys get two recipes for the price of one: an 8-inch round version of the cake (on Thursday) and a 13 x 9-inch rectangular version of the cake (on Friday)!

I hope I’ll see you back here tomorrow to talk all things cherry jam!

Gemma

xxx

I know that I’m cutting it a little fine (okay…very fine), but I didn’t want to let Easter go by without sharing a little sweet treat to mark the occasion! Luckily, this recipe is super quick and easy, so it makes for a great, last-minute bake.

Today’s recipe is a combination of two of my all-time favourite treats: Easter Nests & Mars Bar Rice Crispy Cakes. These are my… Mars Bar Rice Crispy Nests!

Imagine, if you will, a chocolate cereal nest, filled with Mini Eggs (as it should be), but, instead of straight chocolate, this mixture is made with caramel-y, nougat-y Mars Bars (and the nests are drizzled with extra melted chocolate, because it is Easter, after all). These Mars Bar Rice Crispy Nests are sweet and delicious: a super fun spin on an Easter classic.

Ingredients

To make these Mars Bar Rice Crispy Nests, you’ll need the following ingredients:

• Mars Bars

The star of the show! You’ll need 4 x 39.4g bars (which, handily enough, equates to 1 multipack of the bars).

• Butter

I use unsalted butter for this recipe.

• Golden syrup

Golden syrup is melted together with the Mars Bars and butter to make a deliciously sticky, caramel-y mixture that holds the rice crispies together. I’ve given the amount in grams here, because wrangling golden syrup out of a measuring spoon is one of my biggest pet peeves: I won’t be inflicting that on you here— you can weigh the syrup right into the saucepan!

• Rice Crispies

These go by so many names: rice crispies, rice bubbles, rice pops… the list goes on! Basically, if you’ve got puffed rice cereal, you’re good to go. Theoretically, you should be able to make these nests with other types of cereal (shredded wheat and cornflakes are common alternatives for standard chocolate nests), but I’ve only ever tried this particular recipe with rice crispies.

• Mini Eggs

Mini Eggs are a vital part of any Easter Nest (apart from, you know, actual nests). I’ve used three eggs per nest here, but you can do as many or as few as you like.

• Milk chocolate

I like to drizzle the nests with a little chocolate because a) it’s Easter, b) it helps to secure the Mini Eggs in place and c) chocolate goes SO WELL with Mars Bar Rice Crispy Cakes! I’ve used milk chocolate, but feel free to use whatever chocolate you like: for an even sweeter treat, try white chocolate, or, for a slightly more grown-up snack, use dark chocolate.

How to Make Mars Bar Rice Crispy Nests

These nests are SO easy to make! You basically just melt the Mars Bars, butter and golden syrup together, stir through the rice crispies, divide them between some fairy cake cases, add some Mini Eggs and drizzle the whole lot with chocolate. That’s it! They’re perfect for making with kids, because they don’t require any actual baking— just be careful with the warm Mars Bar mixture.

Start by lining a 12-cup fairy cake tin with paper liners and set it aside, ready for later.

Chop the Mars Bars into chunks, then dice the butter.

Put the Mars Bar chunks, diced butter and golden syrup into a medium saucepan and place over low heat.

Stir frequently while everything melts together. Eventually, you’ll end up with a smooth, thick and shiny mixture, like this.

Take the pan off the heat and immediately stir through the rice crispies.

The mixture will be quite stiff, so you’ll need to use a little bit of elbow grease for this! Work quickly, because the mixture will stiffen up even more as it starts to cool.

Still working quickly, use two dessertspoons to divide the rice crispy mixture between the 12 fairy cake cases (about a generously heaped dessertspoon’s worth of mixture per case).

Press 3 (or however many you fancy) Mini Eggs into the centre of each rice crispy heap, pushing them down a little to make sure they’re nicely stuck in and to help create that ‘nest’ shape. If your rice crispy mixture has cooled a bit by this point, the eggs might not stick firmly into it, but that’s okay: we’ll be adding melted chocolate next, which will help to keep them nice and secure!

The final step is to drizzle over some melted chocolate. I like to use a fork for this for ease (I think the tines help to get the drizzle effect!).

Drizzle the chocolate back and forth across each nest, then set them aside at room temperature to firm up for 1-2 hours before serving.

The finished nests can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for about a week. I recommend storing them in their paper cases, because the Mars Bar mixture can make them a little sticky.

Tips & Tricks

This is a super simple recipe to make, but I do have a few tips & tricks, particularly for working with the Mars Bar mixture, that I wanted to share!

• Don’t skip the paper cases

The Mars Bar mixture is significantly stickier than the classic chocolate mixture and won’t firm up as much, so the paper cases are essential for this recipe!

• Be careful not to let the Mars Bar mixture overheat.

Mars Bars are chocolate-y, so the mixture will seize up and split if it’s overheated. Stick to a low heat, stir frequently and make sure to chop up both the Mars Bars and butter beforehand to ensure they melt evenly.

• Use a flat-edged, wooden spoon to mix the rice crispies into the Mars Bar mixture.

Once the Mars Bar mixture starts cooling down, it will become increasingly stiff and hard to work with. Because of this, you need to use a strong utensil to stir through the rice crispies (along with some good old fashioned elbow grease!). I like to use a wooden spoon with a flat edge, because it means I can really scrape down to the bottom of the pan and ensure everything is mixed perfectly.

• Work quickly

Because the Mars Bar mixture gets harder to work with as it cools, you need to start working quickly as soon as you take it off the heat. That includes when you’re mixing in the cereal, dividing it between the fairy cake cases and adding the Mini Eggs. One of the reasons this recipe is so good to make with children is that it means you have a second pair of hands— you can be dividing up the mixture while they press in the eggs!

Recipe

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Mars Bar Rice Crispy Nests

A fun twist on the classic chocolate rice crispy nests for Easter, these easy treats are made with a melted Mars Bar mixture and feature a melted chocolate drizzle.

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine British

Keyword Chocolate, Easter, Mars Bars, Nests, no-bake, Rice crispies

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Set Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings 12 nests

Equipment

• 1 x 12-hole fairy cake tin, lined with paper cases.

Ingredients

• 4 x 39.4g Mars Bars, chopped.
• 40 g unsalted butter, diced.
• 25 g golden syrup
• 75 g rice crispies
• 36 Mini Eggs (approx. 120g).
• 40 g milk chocolate, melted.

Instructions

• Place the chopped Mars Bars, diced butter and golden syrup into a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir frequently until the butter and Mars Bars have melted completely and you have a smooth mixture.
• Remove the pan from the heat and immediately tip in the rice crispies. Working quickly, stir through the cereal until all of the rice crispies are completely coated in the Mars Bar mixture.
• Divide the mixture between 12 fairy cake cases (approx. 1 generously heaped dessertspoon per case).
• Press 3 Mini Eggs into the centre of each case, pushing them down to help form the rice crispy mixture into a 'nest' shape.
• Drizzle each nest with melted chocolate, then set aside at room temperature to firm up for an hour or two before serving.
• The Mars Bar Rice Crispy Nests can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for about a week. I recommend storing them in their paper cases, because the Mars Bar mixture can be a little sticky.

Today’s post is a little different, but I wanted to give you all an update (also, full disclaimer: this post is nowhere near as serious as I’m making it sound! I feel like I’m writing a horrible announcement (I suppose, because it feels that way to me!), but in reality, it’s just a break from sharing my festive ideas: not the end of the world by any means!).

I’m going to be taking a break from my daily Blogmas posts for a little while. I’m so disappointed about this because I had SO many fun & exciting posts lined up to release in the second half of Advent, but the winter colds have really hit me hard this year (I’m currently on my sixth one of the season…) and, with my already less-than-ideal health, it just isn’t feasible for me health/energy-wise right now.

Please know this decision was really hard to make (I just LOVE sharing the magic of the festive season with all of you!) and, while it makes me a little… uncomfortable… to leave this year’s Blogmas At Home incomplete, I have to look after myself (or, at least, I’m learning to!), especially when my body/general health is already on the more feeble side. It’s also important to me that I save some energy for my own festive plans with my family: that is, after all, what Christmas is all about (though the cookies and the pigs in blankets are right up there for me, too!).

With all that being said, I do hope you’ve enjoyed the first 13 days of Blogmas At Home 2025: I’m so proud of all of the posts I’ve shared and I hope they’ve bought you bit of festive joy this year (because, let’s face it, we could all do with a bit of extra festive joy this year). If/when (hopefully, when) I start feeling better, I’ll try to share some of the posts that I had planned to share, even if it’s not a daily occurrence. Either way, I’ll spend some time getting myself better, spending lots of festive time with my family and dreaming up fun ideas for 2026!

I hope you have a magical rest of Advent and an even more magical Christmas,

Gemma

xxx

Every December, I try to come up with a new spin on a festive classic: the Yule Log. My first attempt was my Almond, Rosemary and White Chocolate Yule Log, which featured an almond sponge, filled with an amaretto cream filling, covered in a rosemary-infused white chocolate ganache and sprinkled with toasted almonds.

My second take was my Tirami-Yule Log, which was (you guessed it!) inspired by the flavours of a tiramisu. It was made up of a vanilla sponge, a coffee syrup (spiked with amaretto), mascarpone cream and grated dark chocolate.

This year, I took inspiration from our Christmas Day dessert from last year, which was the Spiced Clementine Cake from the Ginger Pig Christmas Cookbook. The cake is made with ground almonds and a small amount of cinnamon, allspice and cardamom are added to give it a little bit of festive flair. It’s topped with candied orange slices and served with crème fraîche.

Let me introduce you, then, to my Spiced Orange and Almond Yule Log!

Ingredients

To make this Spiced Orange and Almond Yule Log, you will need the following ingredients (it’s a bit of a long list, but stay with me!):

• Oranges

To make an orange cake, you need oranges! You’ll need orange zest for the cake and the crème fraîche filling, then you’ll need some freshly squeezed orange juice for the syrup. I recommend using unwaxed oranges for this recipe.

• Caster sugar

I’ve used golden caster sugar throughout this recipe, but you can use white sugar instead, if you prefer.

• Eggs

I always use large eggs for baking.

• Plain flour

Don’t be tempted to use self-raising flour here, or the cake will rise too much!

• Baking powder

A small amount of baking powder is added to the sponge to help it rise the perfect amount, so that it is light and fluffy, but still rollable.

• Ground cardamom

If you can find ready-ground cardamom, I recommend using that (just for ease). If you can’t find it (and it can be hard to source sometimes), you can use the whole pods: just grind the seeds in a mortar and pestle/spice grinder until you have a fine powder.

• Ground cinnamon

A classic festive spice, ground cinnamon is readily available in supermarkets.

• Ground allspice

The final of the three spices added to the cake batter, allspice adds a lovely, festive warmth.

• Ground almonds

Ground almonds add a sweet, nutty flavour to the cake, while also helping to make the sponge super flexible, so it’s easier to roll without getting cracks!

• Fine sea salt

As with most baked goods, a small amount of salt is added to the cake batter to enhance all of the other flavours.

• Almond extract

Just to amp up the almond flavour even more!

• Vanilla extract

You won’t taste the vanilla flavour (only a very small amount is added), but it helps to counteract any potential eggy-ness that can come with this type of foam-based cake.

• Cardamom pod

A whole cardamom pod is bashed and added to the orange syrup to infuse it with some extra festive spice. It’s best to use the whole spice here, rather than the ground stuff, because it keeps the syrup nice and clear.

• Cinnamon stick

Similarly to the cardamom pod, a small cinnamon stick is added to the orange syrup to add even more festive flavour, without affecting the appearance/texture of the syrup.

• Crème fraîche

Crème fraîche is a classic pairing with any orange and almond cake and it makes the perfect filling for this Yule Log: light and fresh, but still rich and delicious.

Making the Spiced Orange & Almond Sponge

The process for making this sponge is super similar to making the almond sponge from my Almond, Rosemary and White Chocolate Yule Log (just with some added orange and spice!).

The first step is to grease and line the tin. You’ll need a 23 x 33cm Swiss roll tin for this recipe. Use a small amount of sunflower (or other flavourless) oil to grease the tin, then line it with baking paper. Set this aside, then preheat the oven to 180°C (conventional oven, not fan-forced).

Now, it’s time to make the sponge batter. Place the sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer, then zest the orange directly over the top, so that all of the essential oils fall down into the bowl and you get more flavour from the fruit.

Use your fingers or the back of a spoon to rub the zest into the sugar. This helps to make sure it is evenly distributed and releases even more of the essential oils, so you’ll get even more flavour!

Add the eggs to the orange-ified sugar, then, using the whisk attachment, whisk on high speed until the mixture has become pale, fluffy and tripled in volume.

You want it to be at the ‘ribbon stage’, where you can lift the whisk and draw a figure of eight with the ribbon that falls off it.

While the egg mixture is whisking, prepare the dry ingredients. Sift the flour, baking powder, spices and salt together into a separate bowl.

Then whisk in the ground almonds. Set the dry ingredients aside for now.

Once the egg mixture is ready, add both extracts (almond and vanilla) and whisk briefly to incorporate them.

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and sprinkle over the dry ingredients. Scattering the ingredients over the top, rather than dumping them all in in one spot, helps to distribute the weight a little more, so you are less likely to deflate all of the air you’ve just whipped into the eggs!

Using a balloon whisk or a large metal spoon, fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until no streaks of flour remain. I like to use a whisk for this, because I think it works better, but you can use either utensil. The aim is to retain as much air as possible at this stage.

Pour the sponge batter into the prepared tin and use an offset spatula to spread it out gently into an even layer.

Bake the cake in the middle of the preheated oven for 15-17 minutes, until it is risen, golden and just about firm to the touch.

While the cake is baking, spread a piece of baking paper onto a clean work surface. Make sure the baking paper is slightly larger than the size of your cake tin. Sprinkle 2 tbsp of caster sugar all over the baking paper (this will help prevent your sponge from sticking to the paper when you roll it up).

Once the cake has come out of the oven, leave it to cool in the tin for 1 minute, then flip it out onto the prepared, sugared baking paper.

Peel the baking paper layer off the bottom of the cake and discard it, then tightly roll up the sponge, along with the baking paper underneath, starting from one of the shorter ends. Doing this while the sponge is still warm means you’re less likely to get any cracks when you roll it back up later!

Set the cake roll aside to cool completely before filling it.

Making the Spiced Orange Syrup

To add even more flavour to the cake, we’ll be soaking it in a homemade, orange syrup.

To make the syrup, place the orange juice, caster sugar, one cardamom pod (give it a little bash with a rolling pin/the flat edge of a knife first, to help it release its flavour!) and one small cinnamon stick into a small saucepan.

Place the pan over a medium-low heat and swirl it gently every now and then, until the sugar dissolves. Leave the syrup over the heat to bubble away gently, until it has reduced by about 1/3 (about 3-5 minutes).

Remove the pan from the heat and strain the syrup through a heatproof sieve to remove the cardamom pod/cinnamon stick. Set the syrup aside while you make the filling.

Making the Crème Fraîche Filling

This filling is SO easy to make! All you need to do is place the crème fraîche into a bowl, along with the orange zest. Just like with the sponge, I like to zest the orange directly over the bowl so that all of the essential oils fall in and give the filling extra flavour.

Then, just stir everything together. That’s it!

Assembling the Yule Log

Once you have your rolled and cooled sponge, orange syrup and zesty crème fraîche ready to go, it’s time to assemble the Yule Log.

Carefully unroll your sponge cake, using the baking paper to help you if needed.

Use a pastry brush to brush the orange syrup all over the surface of the cake.

Then spread the crème fraîche filling right over the surface of the cake, directly on top of the syrup.

Now, it’s time to roll! The cake should want to roll back up, because it cooled in that position, so just go slowly and roll it back up around the filling, making sure the roll is quite tight, as this will give you the most defined swirl.

Once your cake is all rolled back up, breathe a sigh of relief! You’ve done the hard bit! Don’t worry too much if you get any cracks: it won’t affect the flavour in any way (and icing sugar can hide a multitude of sins!).

If you want to, use a dry pastry brush to gently brush off some of the excess caster sugar from the top and sides of the cake (though I don’t particularly mind the extra crunch!).

Transfer your cake to a serving plate, then it’s time to decorate it!

Decorating the Yule Log

I’ve kept the decoration really simple for this Yule Log: just a generous dusting of icing sugar all over and some homemade Candied Orange Peels placed on top, right down the centre.

I’ve just placed the orange peels on top, but do be aware that they are likely to fall off if you need to transport the cake anywhere! If you want to make the decoration more secure, you might want to make some extra crème fraîche filling and pipe it down the centre of the cake, then you can stick the orange peels to the icing so that they don’t move around.

However, you can decorate this cake in any way you would like! If you really want to impress, you might want to cut a small slice off each end of the cake, to reveal the beautiful swirl inside.

Alternatively, you could make extra crème fraîche filling and use it to ice the outside of the log as well as the inside to give the log a snowy effect.

Once decorated, serve your Yule Log immediately, or store it in the fridge for up to 2 days.

Recipe

Print

Spiced Orange and Almond Yule Log

A spiced orange and almond sponge, soaked with a spiced orange syrup, swirled with a zesty crème fraîche filling and topped with a dusting of icing sugar and some homemade candied orange peels.

Course Dessert, Snack

Keyword almond, Orange, Spiced, yule log

Prep Time 1 hour hour 45 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Equipment

• 23 x 33cm Swiss roll tin

Ingredients

For the spiced orange and almond sponge:

• Sunflower oil, for greasing (or other, flavourless oil).
• 80 g caster sugar, plus 2 tbsp for sprinkling.
• 1 orange, zest only.
• 4 eggs
• 50 g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1 pinch fine sea salt
• 50 g ground almonds
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 splash vanilla extract

For the spiced orange syrup:

• 1 orange, juice only.
• 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 cardamom pod, bashed.
• 1 small cinnamon stick.

For the crème fraîche filling:

• 300 ml crème fraîche
• 1 orange, zest only.

To decorate:

• Icing sugar, for dusting.
• Candied orange peels, (see Note 1).

Instructions

Make the spiced orange and almond sponge:

• Grease the Swiss roll tin lightly with oil and line with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C (conventional, not fan).
• Place the 80g of sugar and the orange zest into the bowl of a stand mixer. Rub the zest into the sugar using your fingers/the back of a spoon until evenly distributed.
• Add the eggs and whisk on high speed until pale, fluffy and tripled in volume (the 'ribbon stage').
• While the eggs are whisking, sift the flour, baking powder, spices and salt together into a separate bowl, then whisk in the ground almonds. Set aside.
• Once the egg mixture has tripled in volume, add the almond and vanilla extract and whisk again briefly to incorporate.
• Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the egg mixture, then use a balloon whisk or large metal spoon to fold them in, until no streaks of flour remain.
• Pour the sponge batter into the prepared tin and use an offset spatula to spread it out into an even layer. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-17 minutes, until risen, golden and just firm to the touch.
• While the cake is baking, cut a rectangle of baking paper slightly larger than the Swiss roll tin. Spread it out on a clean work surface, then sprinkle over the remaining 2 tbsp caster sugar.
• Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 1 minute, then flip it out onto the sugared baking paper. Peel the baking paper off the bottom of the cake, then carefully and tightly roll the warm cake up into a log. Leave the rolled cake at room temperature to cool completely.

Make the spiced orange syrup:

• Once the cake has cooled, make the orange syrup. Place all of the ingredients into a small saucepan and set over medium-low heat. Swirl gently as the sugar dissolves, then allow to bubble away until the syrup has reduced by about 1/3.
• Remove the syrup from the heat, then strain it through a heatproof sieve to remove the spices. Set aside while you make the filling.

Make the crème fraîche filling:

• Place the crème fraîche into a bowl, then add the orange zest. Stir until combined.

Assemble the Yule Log:

• Carefully unroll the cooled sponge. Use a pastry brush to brush the syrup all over the surface of the cake.
• Spread the crème fraîche filling over the cake, right on top of the syrup, then carefully roll the cake back up into the log shape. The tighter you are able to roll it, the more defined your swirl will be.
• Transfer the whole roll to a serving platter, then dust with icing sugar. Arrange the candied orange peels on top, right down the centre, then serve.
• The Yule Log is best eaten immediately, but can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 days.

Notes

1. You can find my recipe for Candied Orange Peels here.

When I was little, one of my most prized possessions was my Pick & Mix Sweet Shop. It had lollipop holders, trays for assorted sweets and even a little weighing scale in the centre: I loved it. Unfortunately, I never actually had enough sweets at any one time to fill my sweet shop, so it sat in my room, beloved, but rather depressingly low in stock.

Every Christmas, I make quite a few festive sweets and treats for my whole family to enjoy. It occurred to me recently, while preparing for the festive season, that I am a grown adult with free will, so I decided to pay tribute to my Pick & Mix Sweet Shop and make my own homemade, festive, sweet shop this year, filled with all of my family’s favourite treats (unfortunately, I cannot charge my family members for the sweets… it is Christmas after all… so take the term ‘shop’ with a pinch of salt!).

In today’s post, I’ll talk you through all of the equipment I used to set up this sweet shop and go through the 6 sweets that I made one-by-one, in case you too have an inner child with a sweet shop fixation that needs to be HEARD.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

What You Need

There are only two things that are absolutely essential for making your own sweet shop: sweets (obviously!) and containers to keep the sweets in. However, if you want to go the extra mile, you can also use some fun, festive decorations and make a whole display out of it!

Most of the things I bought for this sweet shop were from Sostrene Grene, one of my favourite places to shop during the festive season. I’ve linked everything down below, but their stock does change up pretty frequently, so the specific items may not be available anymore. Hopefully, though, the links will give you an idea of what each product looks like, so you can find similar versions!

For my sweet shop, I used the following things:

• Sweets

I used homemade sweets for my shop, but you could also absolutely buy your favourite treats and decant them into pretty jars to make it easier (but just as fun and special!).

• Jars

You’ll need one jar/container per sweet. I tried to source a variety of different shapes and sizes: I already had the two square jars and I bought the others from Sostrene Grene (links below).

Large jar with wooden lid.

Small jar with wooden lid.

Large round jar.

Small round jar.

• Tongs

This was a.. slightly frivolous purchase and by no means necessary, but, when I was buying the jars from Sostrene Grene, I saw these gold tongs and I thought they’d be so cute (and useful!) for getting the treats out of the jars. They actually work really well for the job, so I think it paid off!

• Faux pine garland

This is a festive sweet shop after all, so I nestled the jars in amongst this faux pine garland.

• Christmas lights

You guessed it, these gold star fairy lights are also from Sostrene Grene! They’re wired, so I was able to coax them into the shape I wanted, weaving them around the jars with the garland.

• Knitted sweets

If you’ve been following along with Blogmas At Home this year, you might have seen that I made these knitted sweets earlier on this month and I thought they’d make perfect decorations for this sweet shop! I just dotted them around the place, nestling them within the pine garland.

• Gingerbread Christmas tree

I haven’t shared my gingerbread undertaking for this year yet (don’t worry, it’s coming soon!), so I guess this is a bit of a sneak peak, but I feel like this sprinkle-coated, gingerbread tree fits the whole fun, sweet shop-vibe perfectly, so of course it had to feature!

The Sweets

I made 6 different treats for my sweet shop: Rocky Road Bark, Peppermint Bark, Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles, Toffee Popcorn, Pistachio Nougat and Christmas Market-Style Nuts. Because all of these sweets have pretty long shelf lives, I was able to spread the candy-making process out over a week, so I didn’t get too tired out (or overwhelmed by sugar!).

All of the recipes for these treats are available here on the blog. I’ll link to each one below, so you can make them yourself, if you fancy!

Rocky Road Bark

This Rocky Road Bark was a new entry to our festive treat list last Christmas and is a favourite of my sister-in-law!

It’s made with a 50/50 blend of milk and dark chocolate, mixed with crumbled digestive biscuits and topped with a scattering of mini marshmallows and raisins.

Find my recipe for Rocky Road Bark here.

Peppermint Bark

Peppermint Bark is the OG Christmas sweet in our household: my mum received a homemade version as a gift from her friend many Christmases ago and we loved it so much that I had to recreate it immediately! We’ve been making it ever since. In fact, it’s actually the first recipe I ever shared here on the blog!

The bark is made up of a thin layer of milk chocolate topped with a thin layer of white chocolate, which is then sprinkled with crushed up candy canes.

Find my recipe for Peppermint Bark here.

Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles

A new addition to the festive spread this year: these Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles are the final, chocolate-y offering in my sweet shop and a special request from my brother.

The puddles come in two varieties: dark chocolate puddles, topped with a whole almond and whole dried cherry, and milk chocolate puddles, topped with flaked almonds and chopped dried cherries.

Find my recipe for Cherry & Almond Chocolate Puddles here.

Toffee Popcorn

Toffee Popcorn isn’t an inherently festive treat, but it’s so addictive that I like to reserve it for special occasions (like Christmas)! My dad is a huge toffee popcorn fan, so this one’s for him.

This year, I decided to pull out all of the stops and make my toffee popcorn with a special variety of popcorn kernel known as ‘mushroom popcorn’ (I bought the Joe & Seph’s kernels). Contrary to what the name might imply, this popcorn does not taste at all of mushrooms (thank goodness, because I’m not a fan!), it’s the shape of the popped corn that gives it its name, because the kernels pop up into big, fluffy balls (kind of like the cap of a mushroom)! It’s the type of popcorn typically used by cinemas, so it has a really nostalgic, special vibe that I thought would really add to the festive magic this year!

Find my recipe for Toffee Popcorn here.

Pistachio Nougat

Making nougat is a slightly more involved process than the other sweet treats on this list so, just like the toffee popcorn, I only make it for really special occasions. This Pistachio Nougat is a particular favourite of my mum’s!

Made with egg whites, honey and roasted pistachios, this nougat is a really fun and impressive treat to make this Christmas.

Find my recipe for Pistachio Nougat here.

Christmas Market-Style Nuts

It wouldn’t be December without my Christmas Market-Style Nuts: these are always my absolute favourite treat when I visit any Christmas Market, so learning how to make them at home was a game-changer.

This year, I’ve used a combination of pecans (my all-time favourite), hazelnuts and macadamia nuts. They’re coated in a salty, sugary, cinnamon mixture, then baked until deliciously crunchy.

Find my recipe for Christmas Market-Style Nuts here.

Setting Up the Sweet Shop

Once you have all of your sweets, jars and assorted decorations, you’re ready to set up your sweet shop! Obviously, you can do this however you want and make it as simple or as over-the-top as you want, but, if you’d prefer to relinquish the mental effort and just follow some instructions, here’s what I’d do…

Choose a space that’s both easily accessible (to humans, not to pets!) and out of the way of the typical Christmas hustle and bustle (you don’t want to be knocking over jars as you’re trying to roast a turkey!). A side table or countertop would work perfectly.

Fill each jar with a different sweet/treat. If you have too many sweets for your jars, you can always mix similar sweets together (I’ve done this here: I put the milk and dark chocolate puddles in the same jar!).

Set the jars out first. This allows you to get their positioning right without having to deal with all of the extra decorations. Place the larger jars at the back and the smaller jars towards the front, so that you can see them all from the front. If everything feels a little too on one level, consider placing some of the jars on upturned ramekins (or other assorted knick-knacks), to add a little more height and dimension!

Once you’re happy with the placement of the jars, it’s time to decorate! Here, I’ve used a pine garland, a string of wired fairy lights, some knitted sweets and a gingerbread Christmas tree, but you can obviously use anything you have/think would look good.

I’d recommend starting with the biggest (bushiest?) decoration first (here, that’s my pine garland), as this will give you a base to work with. I wrapped my garland around all of the jars, adjusting (and readjusting) it until I was happy with how it looked.

Next, I added the fairy lights. Adding some lighting helps to make the setup extra festive and cosy-looking. I’ve used these battery-operated gold star lights, which was great because it meant I didn’t have to worry about plugging anything in.

Finally, I added the smaller, individual decorations in amongst the garlands and jars. I placed the gingerbread tree to one side of the setup, then dotted the knitted sweets around the place, nestling them amongst the branches of the pine garland.

And then, you’re done! Turn the fairy lights on, grab some little bowls or paper bags and get the whole family to visit your festive sweet shop before settling down to watch a Christmas film.

Final Thoughts

I think this is such a special, over-the-top (in the best way), thing to do for your family/friends (and yourself!) this festive season. I’m all about making Christmas feel super magical and if putting my homemade treats into some fancy jars and spending a bit of time arranging them does that, then I’m all for it!

Having said that, this is obviously a very extra approach to the festive season and I am aware that not everybody has the time, energy or mental headspace to take on a project like this, particularly at this time of year! You can always take bits and pieces of this idea: make just one of my homemade sweet recipes, find a single, fancy jar in a charity shop and fill it with Quality Street or store-bought nuts, or even just bring some greenery in from the garden and weave a string of fairy lights through it to decorate your home. Christmas is always a bit stressful, but there’s no reason to make it more stressful: I go to such extremes because it brings me joy, not because it’s in any way necessary.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post: it’s a bit of a special one (it had to be, for the halfway point of Blogmas At Home 2025!), so I’m excited to see what you think. I really embraced my inner child (and my inherent lack of restraint) to make something that I think is really fun and I’m super proud of it!

Gemma

xxx

And welcome to the latest, festive instalment of my Baking Around the World series, where I (attempt to) bake delicious, sweet treats from around the globe, in an effort to broaden my foodie horizons!

This time, we’re heading back to Sweden! I’ve already made one bake from Sweden (jordgubbstårta, a light and airy cake filled with pastry cream and strawberries), but I love making festive cookies from around the world this time of year, so I decided to try out these schackrutor (‘chess squares’) too.

A quick Baking Around the World disclaimer before we get into the recipe:

While I have done/will do extensive research for each of the recipes in this series, the recipes are unlikely to be 100% authentic because of differences in ingredient availability, variations within families/regions and multiple other reasons. I'm so sorry if I absolutely butcher your favourite childhood treat (and please let me know in the comments if I have made any unforgiveable errors), but please do give me the benefit of the doubt here- I am just a baker with a serious sweet tooth, trying to broaden her baking (and cultural) horizons through tasty snacks :)

Schackrutor: Explained

Schackrutor are bitesize, shortbread-style biscuits that are made with two flavours of dough (vanilla and chocolate), which are pieced together to create a (typically) 2×2 checkerboard (hence the name, which means ‘chess squares’). Checkerboard cookies are popular all over the world, but it seems that schackrutor were where it all began!

These cookies aren’t restricted to being a ‘Christmas cookie’, but I think they make such a lovely festive treat, especially if you have any friends/family members who aren’t a fan of the more traditional Christmas flavours (think nuts, oranges and dried fruits!).

Schackrutor are often served in Sweden for fika (a social coffee break steeped in rich tradition), sometimes are part of the ‘sju sorters kakor’ (‘seven types of cookie’) custom. Apparently, seven is considered the ideal number for cookies at a gathering, because any less would be ‘stingy’ and any more would be ‘over the top’! To save time, one dough is often used to make multiple different types of biscuits, sometimes called ‘1-2-3 Cookies’, (because of the proportions of the ingredients in the dough: 1 : 2 : 3 of sugar : butter : flour!) and this is the dough we’ll be making today.

Ingredients

You only need 5 ingredients to make schackrutor. The basic dough itself only requires 3 ingredients, while the 2 remaining ingredients provide the chocolate and vanilla flavour.

• Caster sugar

I used golden caster sugar, but white caster sugar will also work.

• Salted butter

I discovered in my research for the jordgubbstårta that the majority of the butter available in Swedish supermarket tends to be salted, so I’ve used salted butter here in an attempt to be more authentic! It’s great, because then you don’t have to worry about adding any salt yourself! If you only have unsalted butter, I’d recommend adding a generous pinch of fine sea salt to your flour at the beginning of the recipe. Your butter needs to be at room temperature (or slightly softened, if your house is chilly!).

• Plain flour

It’s important to use plain flour (not self-raising) for this recipe, because you don’t want the biscuits to rise— you want them to be short and crumbly!

• Vanilla bean paste

In Sweden, vanilla flavour is usually imparted via the addition of a store-bought product called vaniljsocker (‘vanilla sugar’). This ingredient is not readily available here in the UK, so I’ve used vanilla bean paste instead. I like using the paste because it imparts a lovely vanilla flavour without adding too much liquid to the dough (and you can see all the tiny vanilla bean specks in the cookies!).

• Cocoa powder

A small amount of cocoa powder is added to half of the dough to give it a chocolate-y flavour and a deep brown colour, which contrasts nicely with the vanilla dough and helps the checkerboard design to really stand out.

Making the Dough

Schackrutor dough is really easy to make: I do it in the food processor (because the cookies are so tiny, you only need a small amount of dough, so I do it in my mini food processor. You could easily scale the recipe up and make loads of biscuits, though!).

Place the caster sugar, softened butter, plain flour and vanilla bean paste into the food processor.

Pulse everything together until it comes together into a dough… and that’s the dough made!

Tip the dough out onto a clean work surface.

Then give it a little knead to bring it together into a smooth ball.

At this point, you need to weigh the dough, so that you can split it in half evenly. You can eyeball this, but you’ll get the neatest, most even cookies if you weight it! Weigh the whole ball of dough, then divide that number by 2 and split the dough into two equal balls, each weighing that final amount.

Now you need to add the cocoa powder to one of the dough balls. I like to knead it in by hand, until no streaks of vanilla dough remain, so that I can make sure it’s really well incorporated! It’s a little messy, but all the best things are.

Once you have two balls of dough: one chocolate and one vanilla, you’re ready to shape the dough into the classic checkerboard design!

Shaping the Dough

Now it’s time to make the schackrutor log (though it’s really more of a cuboid, which is what gives these biscuits their classic, square shape when sliced!).

The log is made up of four smaller logs (also cuboids): two vanilla and two chocolate, which are pressed together to form the checkerboard design.

Take one of your dough halves (I’m working with the chocolate dough first here) and divide it in half again, so you have two equal balls of dough (it helps to weigh and divide the dough by 2 here, just like last time, to ensure they’re perfectly even!).

Take one of the dough balls and form it into a thin, rectangular log. The aim is for the cross section of the log to be a 1 x 1 cm square (mine ended up about 17cm long). I used my hands to press the dough into a rough log, then tapped all of the sides with a bench scraper, turning the log as I went, to get those square edges.

Repeat this process for the second dough ball, making a square log as similar to the first as you can! Things might be getting a little sticky at this point, but it’s important that you don’t add any extra flour/cocoa powder, because the logs need to be tacky enough to stick to each other later on. If things get unbearably sticky, I’d recommend just washing down your work surface and utensils before getting going again (almost like a stickiness reset!).

Once you have your two chocolate logs, repeat the whole process for the vanilla dough. I’d recommend wiping down your work surface before you do this, to make sure you don’t get any streaks of cocoa in your vanilla dough. Because of the added cocoa powder in the chocolate dough, you might find that the vanilla dough is slightly softer/stickier, but don’t worry— it’ll bake up perfectly!

Once you have all four of the logs ready to go, you can form the checkerboard design.

Place one vanilla log alongside one chocolate log and press them together, being careful not to distort the shapes too much.

Then, add the second vanilla log on top of the chocolate log and the second chocolate log on top of the bottom vanilla log, pressed against each other along the middle so that you have a 2×2 design, with the logs of each colour in opposite quadrants. Gently press all of the logs together so that there are no gaps between them.

Wrap the log tightly in clingfilm, then use the bench scraper again to press gently on each of the sides a few times to really square them off.

Transfer the log to the fridge and allow it to chill for at least 2 hours before slicing. This ensures that they are firm enough to slice without disturbing the checkerboard pattern (and means that the cookies won’t spread too much during baking!).

Slicing and Baking the Cookies

Once the cookie logs have chilled, it’s time to slice & bake them!

Start by preheating the oven to 180°C (conventional oven, not fan) and lining a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Remove the schackrutor log from the fridge and use a small, sharp knife to cut it into slices, about 5-7mm thick (don’t worry too much about getting them perfect, just try your best so that they bake pretty evenly!).

Space the cookies out onto the prepared baking trays (they won’t spread too much, but it’s best to leave a little space between them, just in case!).

Then, it’s time to bake the schackrutor! They’ll need about 6-8 minutes in the preheated oven, just until the edges are starting to turn golden.

Once baked, leave them to cool for 5 or so minutes on their trays, then carefully transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Storage Instructions

The schackrutor need to be stored in an airtight container at room temperature. They’ll keep for about 3 days before they start going a bit soft (still tasty, just not quite as crisp!).

Final Thoughts

I LOVE these little checkerboard cookies! They dough itself is very similar to the one I use for my 5-Ingredient Iced Star Biscuits, but it really shows how versatile it is, because the two cookies have such different vibes.

Also… these cookies are SO much smaller than I expected them to be! As in, they really are bitesize. You could definitely make them bigger if you wanted to (by making taller/wider logs, or even stacking more logs together, which I’m very interested in having a go at), but I do kind of love how tiny they are, it makes them feel so cute and dainty.

These are a simple cookie, elevated to something surprisingly impressive by just a little cocoa powder and a bit of shaping, which I think is pretty magical! I also like that you can form the log, get everything ready, then slice and bake the cookies when you want to serve them, so your family/friends can enjoy some delicious, fresh biscuits.

Recipe

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Swedish Schackrutor

Bitesize vanilla and chocolate shortbread cookies with a checkerboard design.

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine Swedish

Keyword 5 ingredient, Biscuit, Chocolate, Vanilla

Prep Time 40 minutes minutes

Cook Time 8 minutes minutes

Chill Time 2 hours hours

Total Time 2 hours hours 35 minutes minutes

Servings 25 cookies

Equipment

• Baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.
• Bench scraper/clean metal ruler, for squaring off the biscuit dough.

Ingredients

• 25 g caster sugar
• 50 g salted butter, softened.
• 75 g plain flour
• 1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

Instructions

• Place the sugar, butter, flour and vanilla bean paste into a food processor. Pulse until a dough forms.
• Weigh the dough and divide it in half evenly.
• Knead the cocoa powder into one half of the cookie dough until no streaks of vanilla dough remains.
• Divide the vanilla dough into two equal balls. Form each ball into a square log (use a bench scraper/clean metal ruler to really square off the edges), about 1 x 1 x 17cm. Set aside, then repeat with the chocolate dough, so that you have four logs. Do not add any extra flour/cocoa powder at this stage— you need the dough to be slightly sticky.
• Press one vanilla log against one chocolate log. Place the second vanilla log on top of the first chocolate log, then the second chocolate log in the remaining space, on top of the first vanilla log. Press the logs together gently so they stick.
• Wrap the log tightly in cling film and use a bench scraper to press up against the sides and make it super square. Place the log into the fridge to chill for 2 hours before slicing and baking.
• Preheat the oven to 180°C (conventional, not fan).
• Cut the log into approx. 5-7mm slices. Space the cookies on lined baking trays and bake in the preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, until just starting to turn golden around the edges.
• Allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the trays, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before enjoying. The cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for about 3 days before they start going soft.

Sources Used

Books:

Crumbs: Cookies and Sweets from Around the World, Ben Mims.

ScandiKitchen: Fika and Hygge, Bronte Aurell.

Websites:

Daily In-A Kitchen: 3×3 Checkerboard Cookies

Totally Swedish: Brysselkex and Schackrutor

True North Kitchen: Swedish Checkerboard Cookies

Swedish Spoon: Schackrutor—Swedish checkerboard cookies

Visit Sweden: Chessboard Cookies (‘Schackrutor’) – Recipe