Forget the champagne! Celebrate with Maltesers!
Oh yes, these tasty chocolate covered malty balls are a favourite in my household (along with almost every other chocolate), and I’m always more than happy to find an excuse to eat them. So, when Australian Good Taste magazine released their ‘Chocolate’ issue several weeks back, I was delighted to see an amazing Malteser cake gracing the front cover. But, when to make this spectacular cake? The recipe called for almost 500g of Maltesers. This was not a cake you would whip up to gradually eat on your own. It was special and needed a suitable occasion to go with it. Enter, my friend Nathan. Nathan’s a loveable bloke. We share the same love for food, geeky nerdy interests and the same sense of humour (mostly toilet humour – yes, it is terribly unladylike of me). It just so happened that his birthday was coming up, and it also landed on a Friday which was my day off from Uni. Perfect! A bunch of us were going to go out for Nathan’s birthday to a restaurant called The Grace Establishment for roasted suckling pig (which was absolutely amazing!), and I decided that I would make this cake as a gift for Nathan and to have as dessert after dinner. Needless to say, Nathan was a pretty chappy to have a Malteser cake for his birthday! So, Happy Birthday ol’ geezer! This cake is representative of how much I love you and cherish you as a friend (hopefully you take that as I love you lots!). The recipe says this cake serves 12, but it is quite rich so I would cut it up into smaller pieces. There were over 20 people at Nathan’s dinner, and everyone got a piece with some cake left over.
Malteser celebration cake
1 cup (200g) firmly packed brown sugar
¾ cup (185ml) milk
125g butter, chopped
¾ cup (115g) self-raising flour
½ cup (75g) plain flour
½ cup (50g) cocoa powder
3 eggs, lightly whisked
185g butter, extra, at room temperature
2¼ cups (345g) icing sugar mixture
1/3 cup (50g) Milo
1 tbs milk
465g Maltesers (this equates to 3 x 155g bags)
Chocolate ganache
300g dark cooking chocolate, broken up into pieces
½ cup (125ml) thickened cream
30g butter
Preheat oven to 160°C (fan forced). Line the base and sides of a 20cm round springform cake pan with baking paper.
Place the brown sugar, milk and butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Zap it in the microwave on high, stirring every minute, for 2-5 minutes (this will depend on the wattage of your microwave) or until the butter melts and the mixture is smooth.
Sift together the two flours and cocoa powder. Use a whisk to whisk the combined flour and cocoa powder into the butter mixture. Quickly whisk in the eggs. Then pour the mixture into your prepared cake pan. Bake for 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Set aside in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Now onto the ganache! Place the chocolate, cream and butter into a microwave-safe bowl. Zap it in the microwave on high, stirring every minute, for 2-3 minutes (once again, this will depend on the wattage of your microwave) or until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.
Use an electric beater to beat the extra softened butter in a bowl until pale and creamy. Beat in the icing sugar mixture, Milo and extra milk until fluffy. Beat in 1½ tbs ganache. Set the leftover ganache aside for 1.5 hours or until it’s thick and spreadable.
Meanwhile, use a large serrated knife to cut the cake horizontally into 3 layers. I’m not very good at cutting a single cake into layers, so I used a ruler and toothpicks to mark out how thick the layers were, and then used the toothpicks as a guide for my knife. End result, very even cake layers!
Place the cake base on a cake platter or plate. Spread with 1/3 to ½ of the Milo buttercream. Continue layering with the remaining cake and buttercream, finishing with cake as the uppermost layer. Cover and place in the fridge for 1.5 hours to chill.
Spread the ganache evenly over the top and side of the cake. Place a row of Maltesers straight down the middle of the cake, then add in rows on either side.
To serve, cut the cake between the rows of Maltesers, that way you don’t have to struggle with trying to cut through them.
Note: I do need to warn you about a few things if you decide to make this cake. This cake is not the most cost effective cake to make. Maltesers are pricey, especially when you are buying multiple bags. The buttercream for the cake is supposed to be made with malted milk powder. I don’t drink malted milk, so I didn’t have any in my pantry which meant I had it on my shopping list to buy. Can you imagine my reaction, when I discovered that a 500g jar of malted milk powder costs almost $10! I only needed 95 grams for the recipe! I decided to forgo the malted milk powder and replace it with Milo (this product might not be available for my overseas readers), which is a staple in my household so it was already in my pantry. Another thing with the buttercream, take note that I’ve used icing sugar mixture and not pure icing sugar. Icing sugar mixture is great for making buttercream and frosting that you want to be soft and smooth. If you would like to see the original recipe, click here.
thecookingchook 
Mmm…Milo and Maltesers what a great combination.
Yeah – chocolate and maltiness is a pretty good combo. I’ll definitely be making it again, that’s for sure 🙂
Great looking cake!
Thank you! I gotta say, once I placed all of the Maltesers over the cake, it does look pretty good. It’s almost a shame to cut it up….almost 😛
My reaction when I saw this: Oh. My. God… WANT!!!!
PS My birthday’s coming up in June 😉
I know when your birthday is 🙂 Do you really want this entire cake for your birthday? Was that the silliest question to ask, or what?
I WANT it, but logically know it would go to waste. Perhaps just a slice the next time you make one 😉
The cake looks magnificent and divine! The suckling pig @Grace is for sure a delicacy. Yummo~
I can’t speak highly enough of the suckling pig! The Grace crew did such a wonderful job accommodating such a large group and they were quite relaxed about me bringing in a cake, rather than getting dessert from their menu. They even cut the cake up and served it to the group. It was really a wonderful night!
Pure decadence!
Indeed! When I finished making the cake, I did think to myself whether or not everything was going to be too much of a good thing. I didn’t hear any complaints though 🙂
I saw that on the mag’s cover and thought, YUM!
I don’t buy the mag – because I’m a uni student, too, but with a much tighter budget. I figured though I could compromise and just use my own chocolate recipe and buttercream – as long as my final product looked like the mag cover 😛
And yours looks great! Exactly like it in fact. So happy to see you recreated it so perfectly.
Oh and yes, I’m a newcomer as far as I recall, and look forward to coming back for more 🙂
Hi there! Thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog 🙂 I planned ahead and bought myself a two-year subscription before I quit work, so I don’t need to ‘buy’ the mag for the next two years! It wasn’t that hard to put together and I was surprised that I had exactly enough Maltesers to cover the cake – no wastage! I was pretty happy with how it turned out.
This is awesome. Delectable cake. Nice creation for dessert!! 🙂
Thanks for having an image of it sliced. Looks great, the photography makes it more appealing!! 🙂
Randall
http://www.savorthefood.com
Thanks Chef! 🙂
I have that issue and this cake is on my to do list. It looks fab!
Hi Jen – you should definitely make this cake. It is well worth the effort. The problem I found was trying to stop people from stealing the Maltesers off from the cake before serving. Maybe I just have cheeky friends….
I hadn’t thought about that problem – but now that you mention it I know it will be a problem here too. Will get extra Maltesers with that that in mind!!
What a gorgeous cake! You made it look so perfect. I do have a questions. What is “icing sugar mixture”? I’m in the U.S. and we don’t have that here. Can I just use what we call powdered sugar, and what I think is the same as icing sugar? Thanks!
Thank you Janet! Icing sugar mixture is the same as powdered or confectioners sugar, so you can certainly use that. Let me know how you go with the cake if you end up making it 🙂
I made the cake last weekend, it turned out fabulous. I was so glad you’d explained how you put the maltballs on the cake, because it made it so easy for me. Thank you!!! I went to an import store to buy the Maltesers – they were $7 a bag! Ack! A very expensive cake, but well worth it. Did you have trouble with the malt balls falling off when you cut it?
Fantastic Janet! The cake is pretty good, yeah? I bet people were impressed with how good it looked, and tasted too! I don’t remember if I mentioned this in my post, but it’s easier to cut the cake if you remove a row of the Maltesers, so your knife doesn’t get caught in between them and knock them off the cake.
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