It feels like an absolute eternity since I last shared a cake post with you all. I've just checked and the last one was in November - how did that happen?? Yes, I've still blogged - there have been desserts, family and lifestyle posts but somewhere along the way the cake posts have been forgotten.

I'll be honest, our new (old) oven is pretty rubbish and coupled with returning to work and life being far too busy for my liking I've just lost my baking mojo a bit. Mr T has promised to fit a new thermostat to the oven in the hope that it helps and maybe that will spur me on to get baking again. I used to bake almost every weekend, sometimes twice a week and yes I know it's much harder to do that with a baby but whipping up some cupcakes or brownies really doesn't take that long. 

I might set myself a task to bake a Sunday pudding every fortnight, whether that's a cake, a dessert or some sort of sweet treat and then blog it the following week. I'm not going to set it as a weekly goal as I know it won't happen but fortnightly is achievable right?

I baked this cake back in October (I know, I know it's February now) but it's a great cake to make if you have a birthday coming up. My nephews often ask for a cake for their birthday rather than a gift and I am always happy to oblige. Ollie isn't a fan of icing and the traditional celebration cakes so this Gravity Defying Birthday Cake is perfect for him.

It's such an easy cake to make apart from the "pouring sweeties" bit. I found I had to stick them on a couple at a time otherwise they all slid off and I had to start all over again.

As is usually the case Ollie asked for my regular chocolate cake recipe which I sandwiched with chocolate buttercream and coated the outside to give the sweets and chocolate fingers something to stick to.

The birthday boy was delighted with his cake, it's definitely been one of my favourite ones to bake to date.

Gravity Defying Birthday Cake

2.5 cups SR Flour
2 cups soft dark brown sugar (although any sugar will be fine)
1 cup cocoa
1 cup veg/sunflower oil
1.5 cups of milk
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs

• Preheat your oven to 160C (fan)
• Grease and line two 20cm cake tins
• Pop all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth
• Divide between the two tins and bake for 40mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean
• Tip onto a wire rack to cool

Buttercream

200g unsalted butter, softened

500g icing sugar

a few tbsp cocoa

a few tbsp milk

Royal Icing

100g Royal Icing Sugar

a few tbsp of warm water

To decorate

3 x boxes chocolate fingers

6 x tubes Smarties

3 x sharing bags Maltesers

1 x regular bag of Maltesers (for pouring)

2 x cake dowels

• Whisk the butter, icing sugar and cocoa on a high speed for around 5 minutes until fluffy
• Add the milk a tablespoon at a time if it is too thick
• Once the cake is cool level the top of each sponge
• Using a small dollop of buttercream spread this on to your cake board to hold the bottom sponge layer in place
• Spread a generous amount of buttercream to the top, add the second layer of cake and coat in the remaining buttercream
• Stick the chocolate fingers to the cake leaving a gap at the front for the "pouring sweets"
• Stir the Royal Icing Sugar and water together until thick adding more icing sugar if it is too runny
• Pop the two cake dowels into the top of the cake and start to glue the sweets to them
• Scatter the remaining sweets over the cake using the royal icing on the front if the buttercream isn't strong enough
• Place the Smartie's tube and Malteser's bag on top of the cake dowels to finish

Enjoy!