Ingredients

Step by step

1. For the chocolate cake, preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4. Grease 2 x deep 20cm cake tins and line with baking paper. Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate jug, whisk together all of the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Divide the cake batter between the two tins and level the tops. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 15 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
2. For the buttercream, break the dark chocolate into small pieces and place in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in the microwave in blasts of 30 seconds, stirring in between, until melted. Leave to cool. Beat the butter with half of the icing sugar until well combined. Add the remaining icing sugar and cocoa powder and continue to beat until smooth. Beat in the cooled dark chocolate and then the milk until you have a smooth, spreadable buttercream. Roughly chop the mini Creme Eggs.
3. Level the tops of the cakes if required, then place one on a cake board or serving plate. Add a dollop of the buttercream and spread to cover the surface. Scatter with the roughly chopped Creme Eggs. Spread some more buttercream on the underside of the top layer cake and sandwich over the Creme Egg filling. Cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining buttercream, smoothing over with a palette knife until you have a smooth finish. Chill for 20-30 minutes.
4. To create the ‘cracked egg’ decoration, mark out a small circle in the lower right-hand corner of the cake top using a 5cm round cutter. Using the white icing pen, draw a border around the marked circle. Draw a squiggly line with the icing pen across the bottom half of the cake to mark out the edges of the cracked egg.
5. In a bowl, whisk the royal icing sugar with 2 tablespoons of water, until you have a smooth, flooding consistency. If it feels too loose, add a little more icing sugar.
6. Transfer a little of the icing to a small bowl and colour with some of the yellow gel food colouring. Spoon this mixture into the centre of the outlined white circle. Spoon the rest of the white icing inside the squiggly line, allowing it to drip over the edge. Break the hollow Easter egg in half and position it just beside the ‘cracked egg’ on top of the cake, securing with a little extra chocolate buttercream, if needed.