Who had a chocolate hedgehog birthday cake as a child?  I can’t remember having one myself but I do remember my mum making me a Mr Greedy cake when I was about 6 or 7!  It was iced with pink buttercream and I loved it as I was a huge fan of the Mr Men.  (The Little Misses hadn’t been invented then, shows how old I am doesn’t it?)  I have made chocolate hedgehog cakes for others though I never made one for my own children.  They ended up with things like pirate ships and mermaids.

Both my Dad and my step-mum celebrate their birthdays in December and with it being close to Christmas they sometimes miss out on their own birthday cakes.  So as they were coming over to our house for a birthday dinner I decided they just had to have a fun birthday cake.

I decided to test out the Chocolate Mocha Hedgehog Cake recipe from The Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook.  It was baked in a different way to the way I had baked mine.  I had used a half sphere mould or a pudding basin to give the rounded shape in the past.  This recipe involved baking a round sandwich cake and cutting it in half.  It had the extra flavour of the coffee in it and I was pleased that it was a chocolate buttercream for the icing rather than a ganache.  My step mum can’t eat cream so a ganache topping was out.

Now to assemble the hedgehog cake.  I sandwiched the two halves together using some of the mocha chocolate icing. So far so good.  When I put the cake on its side it definitely did not look like a hedgehog.  It looked far too flat.  I was meant to carve some cake off each side but me being thick couldn’t work out WHICH side I was meant to cut.  The hedgehog looked like it had been squashed trying to squeeze through a gate or door!  Oh well.  Also the recipe said to use two bags of chocolate buttons but it did not specify which size bag to use.  I thought it meant the standard size bags you buy individually.  I only just had enough buttons to cover my flat hedgehog.  To create the hedgehog’s eyes and nose I used some Skittles.  The recipe mentioned using Smarties but I hadn’t got any so Skittles had to do.  The eyes looked a bit small and lost, so I tried to make a big nose.  It looked a right mess.  My son came in and started laughing at the hedgehog saying it looked stupid.

My Dad and step mum loved the cake and we all had a little bit after dinner. They then took most of it home in a plastic box to finish it off. As the cake had the coffee flavour it wouldn’t be ideal for very young children, better for someone who is a child at heart.  I really enjoyed the cake, despite it’s appearance and it tasted fab.

Happy Baking.

Love Sam xx