Mad Hatter's Tea Party: Creme egg cake

Trying to decide what cake to make for Easter was really tricky this year. I just couldn't choose a design I liked.

My SIL is lactose intolerant which normally rules out a lot of chocolate based cakes. Or so you'd think. Actually, being lactose free isn't that difficult at all these days. I always use margarine in cakes and Vitalite is dairy free as is cocoa powder. Happy days!

Since I refound my love for my Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, I decided to have a look through for inspiration and came across the Brooklyn Blackout Cake. There's a large quantity of milk in it but you can buy lacto free milk too. So I decided to bake a lacto free version of this cake and turn it into a creme egg cake. I made creme egg buns last year very similar to this but fancied a whole cake this year.

Ingredients:
100g margarine (vitalite if dairy free)
260g caster sugar
2 eggs
45g cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
a pinch of salt
170g plain flour
160 ml whole milk (or lacto free milk if dairy free)

For the chocolate custard:
500g caster sugar
1 tablespoon golden syrup
125g cocoa powder
200g cornflour
85g margarine (or vitalite if dairy free)

Mini creme eggs

(I actually used only half of this custard recipe and it was enough to fill and cover the cakes in my opinion. I did make a mistake by not halving the amount of corn flour so it was very thick however I found it perfect for a filling and it was easy to spread and held it's weight).

You need 3 x 20cm cake tins, base-lined with greaseproof paper. Preheat oven to 180 / 160 fan

Beat the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula after each addition.

Turn the mixer down down to slow speed and beat in the cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt until well mixed.

Add half the flour, then all the milk, and finish with the remaining flour.
Mix until everything is well combined.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for 20 mins. (The recipe says 25-30 minutes but that's too long in my oven).
Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tins
before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely. They're a really light sticky sponge.

Chocolate custard based on how I made it: Halve the ingredients above and put the sugar, golden syrup, cocoa powder and 300ml of water into a large saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat, whisking occasionally.

Mix all (not half) of the cornflour with 120ml of water, then whisk into the cocoa mixture in the saucepan.
Bring back to boil, whisking constantly.
Cook until very thick. Remove from the heat and stir in the margarine.
Pour the custard into a bowl, cover with clingfilm and chill until firm. If you're in a rush to make the cake, spread it out on a baking tray and cover with cling film. This way it'll cool quicker.

Make a buttercream using 140g vitalite and 280g icing sugar and colour half with orange (I use gel) colouring.

Put one cake on a cake stand and cover with some of the custard. Then add some of the two coloured buttercreams and spread around so it looks like the inside of a creme egg.