Our Clandestine Cake club fell on Halloween for the month of October however we decided to go against tradition of making Halloween/scary/pumpkin cakes and the theme instead was favourite chocolate bars.

As a terribly indecisive person, usually when I learn of the theme for cake club I spend a good bit of time deciding on what to make (there can always be so many options) and then end up changing my mind last minute.  However, this month as soon as I learnt what the theme was I chose my chocolate bar straight away which meant I just needed to find/think up a recipe for it.

For me I am a huge chocolate lover and have many favourite chocolate bars, turnock caramel bar (yes please) whittakers coconut slab & that new dairy milk bar with white, dark and milk chocolate (yum!),  however one bar which I love in both its bar form and as an ice cream is snickers.

It’s one of those chocolate bars that always offers an amazing pick me up if you’re in the mood for something a little bit indulgent although the size is a lot smaller now than how it was a few years back so it’s not too bad at all! Just don’t do what I do and buy the pack of smaller size snickers  because you think you’ll be good and just have a couple and before you know it the whole bags gone.

Therefore I was excited to discover a snickers cake recipe that not only looked amazing but was a raw snickers cake too. I mentioned in a previous blog post how I’ve had a mixed experience with raw cakes however the pictures of this cake recipe  and the ingredients used just made me think this has to taste good!

If you enjoy a peanut butter/cocoa smoothie for a sweet energy boost then you will love this cake. I absolutely loved making it, apart from having too small a blender, it was super quick, easy and delicious to sample as you go along too!

It went down well at cake club too. We had some incredible cakes this month with chocolate being a  favourite ingredient amongst most people, however in many different forms. We had  ferrero rocher, kit kat, Gianduia, dark chocolate and raspberry, vanilla sponge with a chocolate ganache and for Halloween tradition, a pumpkin cheesecake.

It was such a wonderful night, everyone went to great effort and we washed the cakes down with some lovely drinks at Lockside Camden. 

The only issue I had with the cake was cutting it! The top layer (the melted chocolate layer) was very hard therefore when I went to cut a slice, the mixture started flowing out at the sides, so be careful with that, but otherwise an amazing recipe that I will quite happily make again and most likely pretty soon!

Ingredients

For the base

• 200g peanuts
• 100g dates
• 30g cacao powder
• 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup

For the first layer

• 3 tbsp peanut butter
• 3 tbsp honey or maple syrup
• 70ml unsweetened almond milk

For the second layer

• 300g dates
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• Pinch salt
• 2 tbsp peanut butter
• 70ml unsweetened almond milk

For the top layer

• 200g dark chocolate
• 25g peanuts to scatter on top

Method

1. For the base place the peanuts, dates, cacao powder and honey or maple syrup in a blend and pulse until you have a dough.
2. Place the dough in your 20cm cake tin and flatten then leave in the freezer to set.
3. Next for the first layer, blend the peanut butter, almond milk and honey or maple syrup together for 5 minutes until you have a smooth warm yellow coloured mixture.
4. Remove the tin from the freezer and smooth the mixture over it then place back in the freezer.
5. For the second layer place the dates in the blender along with vanilla essence, almond milk, salt and peanut butter. ( My blender wasn’t very big so I did this in two parts by dividing the mixture in two)
6. Blend until smooth.
7. Remove the tin from the freezer and smooth the date mixture over the peanut layer.
8. Place back in the freezer for an hour or two to set.
9. Remove from the freezer.
10. Break all the chocolate into small pieces and place in a bowl. Heat in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, taking it out each time to stir. Do this approx. 5 to 6 times until the chocolate is completely smooth.
11. Leave the chocolate to cool for five minutes then pour over the top layer.
12. Scatter a handful of peanuts over to decorate.
13. Place back in fridge and leave to set.*recipe adapted from http://thegoodfoodgoddess.com/