Fake Bakes Recipe - Tesco Crunchy Nut Cereal Cake

I LOVE our Crunchy Nut Cereal Cake. The chocolate bowl filled with Crunchy Nut cereal Swiss meringue buttercream, creamy Belgian white chocolate ganache, a golden chocolate bowl and spoon, and a delightful white chocolate "milk splash" give it a sweet-savoury flavour profile and plenty of breakfast nostalgia.

Making it from scratch is pricey though. So in 2022 I challenged myself to fake the look for £10.

I picked up two Tesco Finest Salted Caramel cakes and vanilla tub frosting. Because I had spent more on the supermarket cakes, I used Tesco's own-brand honey-nut corn flakes rather than the branded cereal.

I wanted cereal bowls, spoons and a milk splash too, so I picked up chocolate buttons, chocolate fingers and a cheap bar of white chocolate. The method below uses a simple melt-and-set shortcut for the decorations; it is not a controlled chocolate-tempering method.

Fake Bake Recipe - Crunchy Nut Cereal Cake

Ingredients

2x Ready-made Salted Caramel Cakes (5" or 6" size)

1 tub (400g) of ready-made Vanilla flavour frosting

Honey Nut Corn Flakes

Chocolate Fingers

Chocolate Buttons

White chocolate bar

Method

1. Prepare the cake decorating station with a cake turntable, angled palette knife, cake scraper, a cake board, a tablespoon, a piping bag fitted with a small star nozzle, and a spatula.

2. Unbox the cakes. Smear a dollop of frosting in the middle of the cake board on the turntable, then place one layer cake on the board. Decant the frosting into a bowl and whip or stir to loosen and lighten it. Pipe some frosting along the top edge and stack the second cake on. Pipe the frosting around the cake and smooth it with a palette knife or plastic cake scraper. Place in the fridge to chill and set.

3. Crush a few handfuls of corn flakes, press them along the base of the cake and return it to the fridge.

4. Place a couple of teaspoons on parchment on a baking tray and position a chocolate finger on each. Gently melt about two-thirds of the chocolate buttons over a bain-marie until mostly melted. Remove from the heat, add the remaining buttons and stir until smooth. This is simply a melt-and-set shortcut for these decorations, not true tempering. Spoon some chocolate over the heads of the teaspoons with the chocolate fingers pressed in, then chill until set. Once firm, use a dry warmed spoon to neaten the shapes if needed.

5. Stir a couple of handfuls of honey-nut corn flakes into the remaining melted chocolate. Crush some chocolate fingers and mix them in. Spoon a few tablespoons into cupcake liners to make bowl shapes, pressing the back of a tablespoon inside to shape them. Chill to set.

6. Break up the white chocolate. Melt about two-thirds gently over a bain-marie until mostly melted, remove from the heat, add the remaining pieces and stir smooth. Again, this is a melt-and-set shortcut, not true tempering. Shape muffin or cupcake liners into a rounded base and pipe white chocolate over their backs to make the "milk splashes". Chill to set.

7. The original 2022 notes used an unmeasured warm-water shortcut for the remaining white chocolate, but they do not preserve a reproducible chocolate-to-water ratio. Do not guess with a small splash of water, which can seize chocolate. For a repeatable drip, prepare a tested white chocolate ganache drip instead.

8. Fit a piping bag with a small star nozzle and pipe the remaining frosting over the top.

9. Remove the chocolate corn-flake bowls from their liners. Decorate the top of the cake with the bowls, add a little frosting and corn flakes, then finish with the milk splashes and chocolate spoons.

10. Using a teaspoon, drip some of the prepared white chocolate ganache over the cake edges and chocolate spoons.

I loved how the milk splash turned out with the inexpensive white chocolate bar I found during the original 2022 shop.

Maybe it's shooting myself in the foot, creating dupes of our own cakes, but it was way too much fun to do this with X-Ray!

Lots of love,

Reshmi xoxo

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