Chocolate & Peanut m&m's Cake

My Friend Laura loves peanut m&m's so as it was her birthday Monday, I decided to make her a cake combining the flavours of peanut butter and chocolate and decorating it with lots of peanut m&m's. I have used kitkats and chocolate fingers before on previous cakes, so for a change I decided to use Mikado biscuits which are much thinner and less substantial - more 'ladylike' if you will! They also taste very nice and are not as filling as having a slice of cake with kitkat or chocolate fingers attached to the ends, which I knew Laura would appreciate as she would have found that too indulgent (even if her hubby would disagree!).

Here is how I made her Chocolate & Peanut m&m's Cake

Ingredients:

200g of good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

170g unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

3 large eggs, separated

370g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

500ml semi skimmed milk

Peanut Butter Frosting:

1 jar crunchy peanut butter
1 jar chocolate spread
2 tbsp full fat cream cheese

4  large bags of Peanut m&m's
4 boxes of Mikado chocolate biscuit sticks
 (or you could use kitkats or chocolate fingers)

Method:

Grease and line 2 x 9 inch cake tins

Pre heat oven to 160C fan/180C/375F

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt either in microwave at 30sec intervals stirring every time until melted, or over a pan of barely simmering water. Allow to cool once the chocolate has melted.

In a large mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar,  until pale and smooth

Put the egg yolks in a separate bowl and beat and then add to the creamed butter and sugar and beat well. Then add the cooled chocolate and beat well.

Combine the remaining dry ingredients (sifted) into another bowl. Add a third of the milk and one third of the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture and beat well after each addition. Repeat this until all has been mixed in.

In a clean bowl whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form and then carefully fold into the creamed mixture using a metal spoon.

Divide the mixture evenly between the tins and bake in centre of oven until skewer comes out clean (about 30 minutes).
* You may find you have a bit of cake mixture left if so make into cupcakes and cook for 25 minutes.

Let the cake cool down completely once removed from the oven.

To make the peanut butter frosting:

Place all the ingredients into a bowl and beat well until soft and spreadable.

Once the cake is completely cooled down, sandwich together with the peanut butter frosting. Then cover the top and sides of the cake aswell.
(you may well end up with some frosint left as I did, but you can use to top any cupcakes you make with the leftover mixture or spread on bread as an indulgent spread!)

Then decorate the circumference of the cake with the chocolate sticks  - with the ones I used I removed the uncovered chocolate ends of each stick before adding them to the cake.

Then fill the top of the cake with the m&m's and if you like, place a ribbon and bow around the cake to make it look pretty and gift like.

The cake was very nutty and moist and my friend and her husband were very pleased to be taking it home to eat up for the next few days!!