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Learn how to make a Kit Kat cake the easy way. This Kit Kat cake recipe is perfect as a homemade birthday cake for all the chocolate lovers.
A delicious cake covered with butter frosting and decorated with Kit Kat fingers and smarties. It is a fun cake that everyone is going to love.
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A Kit Kat cake is one of those cakes that you see pictures of and think “I’d love to make that”, but then you never do. It looks a little complicated and therefore puts you off starting.
The good news however is that it is surprisingly easy to make. In fact, you will find that this cake is really easy to pull off and everyone will think it’s amazing. It’s an easy way to wish anyone a happy birthday.
You don’t need to have ANY cake decorating skills.
It can literally be thrown together and still look great.
Unlike other cakes, the decorating is QUICK and EASY.
Plus it tastes absolutely amazing.
What Is A Kit Kat Cake?
A Kit Kat cake is for ALL the chocolate lovers out there. It is one of those cakes that you have to experience at least once in your lifetime. If not, you are seriously depriving yourself!
For the real die hard chocolate fans, a Kit Kat cake will involved chocolate sponge cake topped with chocolate frosting, surrounded by Kit Kat chocolates and topped with smarties or M&M candies.
The cake is then tied with a ribbon to create a fabulous birthday party cake.
This cake was however made for my husband’s birthday and whilst he loves chocolate, he isn’t a chocoholic. So I simply modified it to use a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting and it was just as amazing.
The best part about this Kit Kat cake recipe is that you don’t need any skills to still make it look amazing. No need to be fussing about making the frosting decoration look perfect, because the sides of the cake will all be covered up by the Kit Kat candy bars, and the top of the cake covered by chocolate chips, M&M candies, or even more small Kit Kat pieces.
If there is another candy of choice you wish to place on the top of the cake, that is fine too, but just make sure that whatever you choose they are small pieces.
This cake will look amazing even if it’s the first time you have tried it. And trust me, all family members will love it!
How To Easily Make A Kit Kat Cake
Step 1: Bake The Cake
The first thing you need to do is bake the cake!
Generally speaking a Kit Kat cake would use a regular chocolate cake. However, I decided to go opt for vanilla sponge so not to have chocolate overload, but it really depends how addicted to chocolate you are!
I like to use 8-inch cake pans for my cakes, and I find this size works perfectly. Round cake pans are also very easy to find and also very easy to style!
Whether you choose to make your own cake from scratch or use a box cake mix, it really doesn’t matter. Just choose a recipe that you feel comfortable working with.
Step 2: Frost The Cake
Once the cake has cooled, mix up some frosting and literally cover the entire cake.
Once again, using chocolate buttercream frosting is perfect for a Kit Kat cake, but I opted for a vanilla frosting, purely to suit my husbands taste. If it was my choice I’d have gone for chocolate ALL the way!
The great thing about adding the frosting to this cake is that it doesn’t matter how neat or messy the frosting looks. There is no need to use a piping bag. Simply frost the cake with a knife.
The frosting will be completely covered so all you need to do is put it all over the cake. It is however a good idea to have a nice even layer coverage, to ensure that the chocolate candies all stick to the cake.
Super easy!
Step 3: Surround The Base of The Cake With Kit Kat Fingers
Place the Kit Kat fingers around the entire outside of the cake.
It really doesn’t matter which way you choose to place the Kit Kat fingers on the cake, but I wanted to have a smooth look, so I placed the top facing the cake.
Either way works great.
Step 4: Top The Cake With Smarties Or M&M’s
Now for the fun part, where you get to add the Smarties or the M&M candies to the top of the cake.
I chose to use smarties, but M&M’s work really well too.
Once again you have a choice of how you place the Smarties on the top of the cake.
You can either throw them in a pile on the top so that they are all over each other, OR you can neatly arrange them like I did for this cake.
I wanted to create a spiral effect, so I carefully placed each Smartie individually.
If you don’t have the patience for this, the messy look will also work just fine.
If you plan on doing the spiral effect, simply keep placing the Smarties until the entire top of the cake has been covered.
Step 5: Add A Ribbon
For a finishing touch, add a ribbon around the cake.
The ribbon also helps to keep all the Kit Kat fingers in place.
Then viola your Kit Kat birthday cake is complete.
How Many Kit Kats Are In A Kit Kat Cake?
The number of Kit Kat bars you will need will largely depend on the size of the cake you are making.
However for this size cake I used 3 family sized bars.
It is however also useful to have a few spares in case some of the Kit Kat fingers break or you decide to eat them whilst decorating!
What About A Double Layer Kit Kat Cake?
If you want to take this Kit Kat cake recipe to the next level, then consider making it a double later cake.
Before you commence decorating simply cut the cake in half to create two cake layers. Fill the middle of the cake with either a cream cheese or chocolate frosting for extra indulgence.
Using double layers in the cake is also the perfect way to make the cake look bigger and more impressive!
Fun Variations Of The Kit Kat Cake Recipe
- Seasonal Kit Kat Cake: Top the cake with candy that matches the holiday. For example choose red and green M&M’s with a festive ribbon to tied around the cake base for a Christmas Kit Kat cake.
- Fruit Topped Kit Kat Cake: Top the cake with whipped cream and then your fruit of choice. Strawberries would work perfectly with this.
- Top with various chocolate bars: Instead of using M&M candies on the top of the cake, mix it up with various other chocolate bars. Cut Mars bars, Twix, Snickers etc into small pieces and then scatter over the top of the cake.
However you choose to adapt this Kit Kat cake recipe, the end result is guaranteed to be impressive. And I can vouch that it will taste AMAZING!
A Kit Kat cake is definitely the best chocolate cake you can make for any celebration.
Is this the cake you will be choosing to make for your next party?
Need some more recipe ideas? Check out our entire range of party food ideas that are perfect for the kids and adults too. There are plenty of homemade birthday cakes, cupcakes, cookies, chocolate popcorn and other delicious recipes that guests will all love.
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Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Kit Kat Cake 🙂
Looks great Catherine! May have to make that at some point, got a lot of Birthdays in the family next month, so this could be a good recipe to use. 🙂
Ha ha…I thought this one might tempt you Matt! Absolutely make it. Honestly…it was incredibly easy to do and you family will love you (even more) for it!!
This is beautiful, I’ve made a kit Kat cake before but I love the way you spiralled the smarties, it’s very effective. Zoe x
Thanks Zoe…the spiral effect did look great. It took a little longer to do that just throwing the smarties on the top, but i think it is worth it for a nice change. It also uses less smarties 🙂