So with my daughter being ill these last few days Vonnie has found it a little helpful to have me around the house instead of being at work. With Kat coming over to visit I was sent to the darkest depths of the kitchen and told not to come back until I had something to show for it. Actually what really happened was Vonnie sent me a link to a recipe and asked me to go make it so they had something to eat with their tea.

Anyway… Vonnie has been meaning to try this one since she came up  the idea of making it for my birthday and not having the time to finish it. In fact I’ve lost count of the packets of Maltesers I’ve bought for this and ended up eating instead.

Ingrediants for the sponge

• 150g brown sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 175ml milk
• 15g unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons Horlicks powder
• 175g plain flour
• 25g cocoa sieved
• 1 teasp baking powder
• 1/2 teasp bicarbonate soda

Ingredients for the icing and decoration

• 250g icing sugar
• 1 teasp cocoa
• 45g Horlicks
• 125g unsalted softened butter
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• 2 x 37g pkt Maltesers

Your wanting everything at room temperature to start with for this one although we don’t keep our eggs in the fridge anyway. You’ll need to soften your butter for the icing but it’s not essential for the cake.

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 3/170C and grease/line two 20cm loose-bottomed sandwich cake tins.

Throw together the sugar and the eggs in a bowl and whisk it up until light and frothy. Set that aside and then using a small amount of the milk mix it with the Horlicks until you have a smooth paste. Heat up the milk and butter in a small pan and add your Horlicks paste. Give your pot a stir with a wooden spoon until the butter has melted and the mixture is hot but not boiling.

Slowly beat the milk mixture into the egg/sugar mixture and the fold in the dry ingredients. Once you’ve done this split your batter between your two tins evenly. Going by the book the cakes should take 25 minutes to bake at which time the cakes should have risen and will spring back when pressed gently. I think mine actually took 40 minutes but then my cooker isn’t the most accurate at low temperatures. Once on the rack make sure you let them cool completely. I forgot this last bit and paid the price for it when it came to icing the cake.

Seive the icing sugar, cocoa and Horlicks into a bowl and add the softened butter and beat awy with your wooden spoon. I found I had to add the water fairly early on to get the icing to come together as although by butter was soft it just wasn’t soft enough and the hot water managed to fox that. Use half the icing as alayer between the sponges and spread the rest out on top. Once you’ve done that decorate the top with the maltesers and your done.

Apparently this is supposed to give you 8-10 slices but once you’ve tasted it you’ll probably only slice the next one into 4-6 slices instead.