How to Make the Best Easy Digger Birthday Cake

When my eldest son turned 3, as he was a fan of anything on wheels, we decided to throw him a construction-themed birthday party, complete with construction birthday cake (more on that to come!), including a delicious, yet easy construction digger birthday cake fit for any budding builder. This digger cake was seriously more-ish, and so, so easy to make. This delicious chocolate cake really was the centre-piece of the party! The cake recipe is adapted from the BBC Good Food website.

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To make the actual digger birthday cake, you will need:

225g/8oz plain flour

350g/12½oz caster sugar

85g/3oz cocoa powder

1½ tsp baking powder

1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 free-range eggs

250ml/9fl oz milk (and a splash of sour cream if you have it)

125ml/4½fl oz vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

250ml/9fl oz boiling water

For the icing, you will need:

200g/7oz plain chocolate

200ml/7fl oz double cream

If you don’t want to make your own icing, or don’t have time, then you can easily buy some Betty Crocker icing (or similar) to use instead.

To decorate, you will need:

One or two small digger toys, like a dump truck or other, similar construction toys or construction vehicles

Bag of Malteasers (for the ‘boulders’)

Traffic cone candles (I got mine from HERE)

Instructions for making an easy construction digger birthday cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line two 20cm/8in sandwich tins.

2. For this round cake, place all of the cake ingredients, except the boiling water, into a large mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon, electric whisk or food processor on a low setting, beat the mixture until smooth and well combined.

3. Add the boiling water to the mixture, a little at a time, until smooth. (The cake mixture will now be very liquid.)

4. Divide the cake mix between the sandwich tins and bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes, or until the top is firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

5. Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool completely in a cool place, still in their tins, before icing.

6. For the chocolate icing for the digger birthday cake, heat the chocolate and cream in a saucepan over a low heat until the chocolate melts. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk the mixture until smooth, glossy and thickened. Set aside to cool for 1-2 hours, or until thick enough to spread over the cake.

7. To assemble the digger birthday cake, run a round-bladed knife around the inside of the cake tins to loosen the cakes. Carefully remove the cakes from the tins.

8. Spread a little chocolate icing over the top of one of the chocolate cakes, then carefully top with the other cake.

9. Transfer the cake to a serving plate and ice the cake all over with the chocolate icing, using a palette knife.

10. To start the transformation of this cake from simple chocolate one to digging delight, you first of all need to scoop away, a bit at a time, some of the cake from one side. Keep the cake you have scooped out, as you will need this in a second.

11. Arrange your digger and dump-truck on top of the cake, with the digger ‘digging’ into the newly formed cake-hole.

12. In your dump-truck, put a little of the cake mixture, as if being tipped out, and a bit more in a small pile behind it reaching back to the middle of the cake to create some edible dirt.

13. Then, artfully arrange some Malteasers on the chocolate frosting, so that they are ‘falling down’ the ‘cake hole’, to create a small pile of ‘boulders’ cascading down the cake.

14. Finally, place your cone candles next to the digger birthday cake on the cake board. You could also add some toy hard hats and traffic warning signs to complete the construction effect to your construction site cake.

Et Voila, one easy cake, but an equally grand looking one ready for party guests to demolish (pardon the pun)!

One easy construction cake for your little one, and an impressive homemade cake at that! Our birthday boy was very happy, and suitably impressed!

See some more of my baking posts here