Recipe by Louise Gough

A delicious autumn bake combining chocolate orange cake, zesty marmalade and smooth buttercream, finished with edible chocolate trees and colourful autumn leaves.

Ingredients (Makes 6)

500g Chocolate Orange Drop Easy Bake Cake Mix

250g Chocolate Orange Natural Flavoured Icing Sugar

125g Butter (softened)

100g Shredless Orange Marmalade (stirred)

70g Melt & Pour Dark Chocolate

1 x 25g Scrumptious pouch of Glimmer Autumn Leaves

You will need

A tree template, downloadable from this page or if you are clever, draw it free hand.

A4 size piece of baking parchment and 2 small bulldog clips

A piping bag or 2 x disposable piping bags.

7 cocktail sticks

6 mini panettone cake cases

Method 

1. Make the Easy Bake cake mix up as per the instructions.
2. Add the mixture to a lined traybake tin
3. Bake at 160c for approximately 30 mins, leave to cool.
4. Place your baking parchment over the tree template and secure with clips.
5. Place your chocolate in a microwavable bowl or jug and melt in 30 second bursts until just melted.
6. Pour into your piping bag and snip a little bit off the end.
7. Follow the lines on the template, once you have filled in the trunk press a cocktail stick into the length of the trunk then pipe more chocolate over the top
8. Sprinkle the branches with leaves being careful not to get any on the trunk. Use your spare cocktail stick to position any rogue leaves.
9. Do this for all 6 trees and leave to cool somewhere flat.
10. Make up the Chocolate Orange Natural Flavoured Icing Sugar as per the instructions, you need it to be soft so you may need to add some extra milk or boiled water.
11. Add your buttercream to a clean/new piping bag and snip the end.
12. Using a cutter that is only slightly smaller than your case cut 12 discs out of your traybake.
13. Place a disc in the bottom of each case followed by a couple of teaspoons of orange marmalade. Add a swirl of chocolate orange buttercream.
14. Add another disc on top and press so that it is slightly below the top of the case.
15. Either crumble by hand or whizz up in a food processor the remaining off cuts of soil. This will be your soil at the base of the tree.
16. Dividing the remaining buttercream between the 6 cases and smooth over with a spoon or small knife. Sprinkle with your ‘soil’.
17. Sprinkle a few extra leaves on top of the ‘soil’ the gently remove your tree from the greaseproof paper and poke into the cupcake.