Hidden Name Birthday Cake

Last week it was my boyfriend Liam's 21st birthday and I had an exciting birthday cake idea up my sleeve! After a few weeks of planning and internet shopping I made his cake and was so proud of it! I've never made anything quite so challenging and everyone was really impressed with it, especially the birthday boy - so it was worth every bit of stress! I really hope you like this recipe, although it's a bit tricky and fussy, everyone is so amazed so it's definitely worth it for a special occasion! I also apologise in advance for the length of the instructions...!

Ingredients  

For the vanilla letters
225g softened butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder

a splash of milk 

1tbsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate sponge
450g softened butter 
450g caster sugar
8 eggs
280g self-raising flour
200g cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
a splash of milk

For the chocolate ganache
300ml double cream
300g dark chocolate
3tsp caster sugar


Method

Vanilla letters

1. The day before you want your cake to be ready, make the vanilla letters. Start by preheating your oven to 180ºC and lining two loaf tins with butter and flour. 
2. In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Add an egg and a tablespoon of flour and combine. Repeat this until all of the eggs and all of the flour has been mixed together. 
3. Sift in your baking powder and add your splash of milk and vanilla extract and combine everything. 
4. Spoon the cake mixture into your prepared loaf tins and bake for 30 minutes - an inserted skewer or fork should come out clean. 
5. Let the vanilla sponge cool completely and then turn them out of the tins. Cut the loaves in half lengthways and cut out your letters - you can use cookie cutters like me, or cut them out by hand. This will only really work with a 3 or 4 letter name. You will need 4 of each letter, so for example I had 4 L's, 4 I's, 4 A's and 4 M's cut out of my vanilla cake.
6. Once you have cut out your letters, wrap them in cling film and pop them in the freezer. You can carry on with the cake the next day, or if you wanted to continue the same day, make sure your letters have completely frozen. This prevents them from over-baking when they are in the middle of the chocolate sponge.
   
   

Chocolate cake

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC and line two loaf tins (or a square cake tin - I kinda wish that I used a square cake tin, it would make the finished cake look a bit better) with butter and cocoa powder. 
2. Cream together your butter and sugar and add the eggs and flour and cocoa powder bit by bit. 
3. Sift in the baking powder and add the splash of milk and mix together until the mixture has combined. 
4. Smooth out a bit of the chocolate cake mixture into the bottom of the loaf/cake tins, take your vanilla letters out of the freezer (and out of the cling film!) and place them inside the tins. Stack them upwards as they'll hold their shape better if they're lying flat. 
5. Once the letters have been placed in the tins, add the rest of the chocolate cake batter - it may take some time filling in around the letters, but you want to make sure that there are no gaps. 
6. Cover the letters at the top, smooth the mixture over and pop into the oven for about 50 minutes. For the last 10-20 minutes of the bake you may want to cover the tins with tin foil as you don't want the cake to burn, and it's quite hard to tell if a chocolate cake is burning or not!
7. After the cakes have been in the oven for 50 minutes, insert a fork or skewer into the cake. If it comes out clean or very nearly clean, remove it from the oven and leave to cool in the tins. Once they are cool you can move on to the chocolate ganache!
   
   

Chocolate ganache

1. Start by breaking up your chocolate and placing it into a large heatproof mixing bowl. 
2. In a saucepan, heat your cream and sugar together and when it reaches the boil, pour it over your broken up chocolate. 
3. Keep stirring the chocolate and cream until all of the chocolate has melted and the ganache is shiny and smooth. 
4. Leave your ganache for about half an hour to set. 
5. Once the ganache has set, cut your two cakes in half lengthways (or just the one cake if you have used a large square cake tin). Make sure that your letters will match up when you assemble the cakes, and once you're happy with the order in which your cakes will go, put a bit of ganache on each cake and stack them up. Be sure to make a note of the 'front' of the cake - you don't want to cut into the cake and the name to be backwards!
6. Leave the cake to set for a little while and then you can ganache it all over! 
7. I also piped on some white chocolate ganache at the bottom of the cake - I brought 100ml double cream to the boil with 1 tsp sugar and poured it over 100g white chocolate and left to set in the fridge before piping. You can decorate this cake however you like! I also piped '21' onto the top of the cake but didn't take a good enough photo of it...oops! 
8. Add candles and it's good to go!

I really hope that this recipe helps anyone who is thinking of giving a hidden name cake a go! Although a lot of planning (and ingredients) goes into this cake, everyone who sees it is so impressed and happy with it that the planning and stress 100% pays off! What's even better is that it tastes great too! I was really worried that people would think that it looked good but the flavour wouldn't match up, but that wasn't the case :)

Also, you can definitely switch up the flavours of this cake - you could do chocolate letters with vanilla sponge or a vanilla sponge with coloured letters and flavoured icing.