Chocolate Stars Eggless Birthday Cake

Although it looks fancy enough for a party, this cake is actually quite quick and easy to make and decorate- always a plus if you have a family!

I made this cake for a friend's 50th birthday. It's not a conventional birthday cake, but easy to make and delicious; ideal for a party when you have so much more than just the cake to plan and cook. This cake serves about 20 smallish slices (or 16 for a party of cake monsters!) and is made with a double quantity of our eggless cake recipe to which was added some Barleycup powder with the dry ingredients, for a coffee-like taste. The filling and all-over frosting was made with 400g dairy free spread, 600g icing sugar (use beet sugar or unrefined icing sugar to avoid the bone char filtering.) and a few spoons of cocoa powder. I was going to make chocolate leaves or curls as the decorations but when I got to my local Waitrose and saw their new home baking section with all the wonderful decorations, cakeboards, sprinkles, fancy boxes etc. I ended up buying a packet of chocolate stars! The non-vegan ingredients are of course the Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers (I don't think even the dark chocolate ones are vegan as they are made with Bournville chocolate which contains butter) and the star decorations. You can easily veganise this cake if you want by changing the decorations, as both the cake itself and the frosting are vegan.

The buttercream icing is spread on in swirls rather than piped, decorated with chocolate stars and finished with edible glitter.

Chocolate finger biscuits around the edge secured with a ribbon ensure a neat finish.