Cake:

Preheat your oven to 170°C. Lightly grease and line two 20cm springform cake tins.

Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and NOMU Vanilla Cake Kit caster sugar sachet on high speed for 2 minutes or until very pale and fluffy. Add the melted butter and milk and blend until combined.

Add the NOMU Vanilla Cake Kit cake mix and beat on the lowest speed until just combined and smooth.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake tins and bake for 50-55 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before icing.

Buttercream icing:

Beat the softened butter on high speed until very pale and creamy. Add the NOMU Vanilla Cake Kit icing mix and beat until well combined. Add the milk and optional NOMU Vanilla Paste and beat to form a smooth, silky buttercream.

We then added Barco white powder food colourant to get a beautiful frosty white buttercream – add small amounts of colour at a time, until you have the desired colour.

Once the cake is completely cool, you can start assembling your layers. We suggest placing a spoonful of icing onto the middle of your plate or cake stand and placing your bottom layer on top of that – this helps it not to move around while you’re working.

Top your bottom layer with a generous amount of icing and spread it evenly to the edges. Gently place the second layer on top of that, and cover the entire cake with a very thin layer of icing. This is called the crumb coat, which glues down stray crumbs so that you have a neater and cleaner finish. Place the cake in the fridge for the icing to firm up.

Once the icing has set, you can remove the cake from the fridge and finish icing it. To get smooth and sharp edges, we suggest using an offset spatula or palette knife dipped in warm water. Place the cake in the fridge to cool.

It’s really important that the cake is chilled before adding the drippy ganache – this slows down and causes the ganache to set slightly faster, so it doesn’t end up being a chocolatey mess!

Ganache drip:

Place the cream and NOMU Decadent Hot Chocolate in a bowl over a pot of boiling water (don’t let the bowl touch the water). Stir until combined and smooth, remove from heat and cool until it has a creamy consistency. Add a dash of vegetable oil to help the ganache take on a glossy look, also making it easier to work with.

Start around the edges and spoon the ganache onto the cake slowly and bit by bit. Once you’ve created your perfect drips, start slowly adding ganache to the centre of the top of the cake, spreading it out with an offset palette knife or the back of a spoon until the top is completely covered.

We kept our cake super simple, but you can have fun with creative and colourful toppings, like fresh flowers, meringue kisses and chocolates.

Recipe variations:

RASPBERRY CREAM CAKE: Add 5ml NOMU Vanilla Paste to 250ml cream and whip until soft peaks form. Layer the cake with the cream and fresh raspberries.

LEMON LAYER CAKE: Add the juice and zest of 1 lemon to the cake batter. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and the zest of 1 lemon to the frosting before icing. To make lemon poppy seed cake, add 1-2 tbsp poppy seeds to the batter.

CHOCOLATE CAKE: Add 6 tbsp NOMU Cocoa Powder to the cake mix and add 3-4 tbsp NOMU Cocoa powder to the icing mix. Or try our easy NOMU Chocolate Cake Kit!