Baking for Beginners: Daim Bar Truffle Cake

When two units of awesome come together they form some kind of global super power - think Brangelina, shapewear dresses, tinted moisturiser and now we have the king of them all... the Daim Bar Milka, two of the my favourite sweets fused into one glorious bar of chocolatey superfood goodness!

Well today is my birthday and so I thought I'd bake myself the ultimate cake to celebrate using my new discovery. I forgot to buy (*ahem*... ate) the extra Daims needed to crumble over the top of the finished cake, but it's by far the best birthday cake I've ever made. It's gluten free and I'm definitely going to make it again for Christmas and put a load of rum soaked sultanas in it. You will need to make the cake the day before you want to eat it - it needs to go in the fridge overnight before you add the ganache topping.

You'll need:

• Bit of extra butter or oil for greasing.
• 300g Daim Bar Milka
• 100g 85% cocoa chocolate
• 250g unsalted butter
• pinch sea salt
• seeds from 1 vanilla pod (or 1 capful vanilla extract)
• 10 eggs
• 150g caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

For the topping:

• 300ml double cream
• 200g milk chocolate 
• 2 regular Daim Bars

Make it!

1. Preheat your oven to 140C. Take a 12" springform cake tin and cover the base with tin foil then grease the base and sides, I used a nice nutty rapeseed oil. 
2. Melt together your chocolate, butter, salt and vanilla and put in a large bowl. Stick the leftover vanilla pods into a jar of caster sugar so you have a handy pot of vanilla sugar ready for another ace dish.
3. Separate your eggs into 2 bowls (I always do this one egg at a time into a cup then pour the whites into the bowl with the rest of them, as there is nothing worse than separating 8 eggs successfully then messing up and getting yolk in there and ruining the whole lot). Add the caster sugar to the egg yolks and using an electric whisk beat until it's really pale and fluffy, this will take about five minutes) then pour into your melted chocolate and mix well but gently with a spatula.
4. Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and making sure that your whisk is really clean, beat them until you get soft peaks then just a few seconds more so they are just that little bit harder.
5. Very gently fold in the egg whites bit by bit into the chocolatey mixture whilst trying not to knock out the air.
6. Pour into your tin and bake for 40 minutes. The cake will still be all wobbly but thats how it should be, leave to cool for about an hour on the side then refrigerate overnight.
7. The following day make your ganache topping. Finely chop or grate the 200g chocolate and put in a bowl. Heat the double cream until just boiling then pour over the chocolate, don't stir it just leave it for about 5 minutes before mixing. the chocolate will be melted.
8. Carefully remove the cake from the tin then pour over your ganache. leave for about 20 minutes to harden then smash up the Daim Bars and crumble over the top.