Dinosaur Bundt Cake

I just needed an excuse to make it...

I adore dinosaurs. When my brother and I were kids, we loved going to the shop at Bolton Museum to collect figurines of our favourites. We were obsessed with the original Japanese Godzilla films too, which were so badly dubbed, it was genuinely funny! No other bugger watched them, so they stuck them on channel four at about 3am. We had quite a 'recorded from the telly' VHS collection.

Ages ago, I bought a little bag of plastic dinosaurs, knowing full well that they would make it onto a cake. I had no idea when or indeed why, but I knew it had to happen. Cue Sam. Sam is my mate Emma's son. He's a pretty cool kid, and bloody loves a massive lizard, just like me! Em and I decided that a dinosaur cake was required, and she trusted my mental imagination to come up with the goods (don't worry, she's met me before...).

I was genuinely really excited at the prospect of making this, yet equally terrified as I wasn't totally convinced that the idea in my head would translate into something edible. I also had a second idea for another dinosaur cake whilst making this one...

Big question though - nothing to do with the cake... Diplodocus. When did Dip-lo-do-cus become Dip-lod-er-cus? Then there are some bozos throwing Dip-lo-dock-us into the mix. Huh? Terrible.

Anyway, this is just a rich chocolate bundt with crackers decorations, so you could just make it sans dinosaurs... if you want... fool. Anyway, here's how to make one!

 Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 350g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 200ml plain yoghurt
• 75ml chocolate milk
• 150g chocolate chips 
• 1 heaped tbsp chocolate spread
• 1 jar of chocolate spread (minus the above mentioned spoonful)
• Cookies to decorate

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 c
2. Prepare a regular sized bundt tin - 2.4l, 10 cup, 10 inch with Cake Release spray/melted butter and dust with flour with a little cocoa mixed in.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
5. Add the vanilla extract.
6. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
7. Pour the yoghurt and chocolate milk into a jug.
8. Sift in a third of the flour mix followed by half the yoghurt mix. Repeat this until everything is combined.
9. Stir in the chocolate chips and chocolate spread.
10. Give everything a quick mix on a low speed for about 10 seconds.
11. Pour the mix into your prepared tin. 
12. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 
13. Leave the cake to cool for ten minutes before removing from the tin.
14. When the cake is fully cool, pop the chocolate spread into a jug and heat in the microwave to loosen it. Tip over your cake and decorate with bits of cookie!
15. I decorated mine with green sugar paste cut into footprints, chocolate eggs, and of course, plastic dinosaurs!

Where to buy this stuff:
Cake Release
Nordic Ware Bundts
Green Icing
Coloured eggs
Green Cake Board
Dinosaur Model Figures

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and basic recipe. Blood, sweat and many tears have gone into getting this right, so you may enjoy a perfect bundt. If you wish to re-blog a recipe from these variations, please credit my blog and link to this original post rather than pasting the recipe on your own page.