Prepare your 10 lbs of Ultimate Chocolate Cake batter and divide accordingly:

• 3 lbs of batter in each 9” Round Cake Pan (1 hour 10 mins)
• 2 lbs in your 7” Round Cake Pan (1 hour 10 mins)
• 1 lb in each 5” Round Cake Pan (50 mins)

Bake at 350 degrees for the given time in brackets above, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool cakes completely in their pans sitting on a wire rack.

Prepare your Italian Meringue Buttercream. Set aside.

Prepare one recipe of Simple Syrup and allow to cool completely before pouring into a simple syrup squeeze bottle.

Once your cakes are completely cool, remove them from their pans and level with a ruler and serrated knife. Next, cut each of your cakes horizontally into two equal layers. Set aside.

In only three out of the four 5” cake layers, cut a circle out of the center of your cakes using your 2 ½ inch circle cutter. Make sure to use a ruler to measure the exact center of your cakes before cutting, so that they all line up evenly when stacked.

Lay out all of your cake layers on a flat surface and sprinkle thoroughly with simple syrup. Allow to soak in completely prior to decorating.

Divide out and colour your Italian buttercream according to the following formula:

• 2 cups, dyed with Wilton Golden Yellow Icing Color & Wilton Color Right Base Yellow
• 1.5 cups, dyed with Americolor Turquoise
• 1 cup, dyed with Americolor Soft Pink & Americolor Avocado (just a touch to soften the pink slightly

Keep the remaining buttercream in the original bowl.

Note: Feel free to use alternate colours when dying your buttercream! I just wanted to make each of my colours look as close to the colours of my Cadbury Mini Eggs as possible.

Because Cadbury Mini Eggs’ delicious candy shell can be hard to chop, carefully use a chef’s knife to try to cut each one in half. Chop enough Mini Eggs for your first layer of cake, and then just chop as you go to make sure you have just enough to sprinkle overtop of each cake layer.

Place your first 9” chocolate cake layer on your 9” round cake board. Spread on an even layer of yellow buttercream using your offset spatula, then sprinkle some Cadbury Mini Eggs overtop. (I used a combination of the pink and teal Mini Eggs, but you can use any kind you’d like!) Repeat the process with your remaining layers of 9” round chocolate cakes, and place your final layer on top. Set aside.

Place your first 7” chocolate cake layer on your 7” round cake board. Spread on an even layer of teal buttercream using your offset spatula, then sprinkle some Cadbury Mini Eggs overtop. (For this layer, I used a combination of the yellow and green Mini Eggs, but again - feel free to use any kind you’d like!) Next, place your final 7” cake layer on top. Set aside.

Place your first 5” cut-out chocolate cake layer on your 5” round cake board. Spread on an even layer of pink buttercream using your offset spatula, then stack and fill your next cut-out layer. When you’ve filled and stacked all three cut-out layers, fill the middle with an assortment of whole Cadbury Mini Eggs and add your final top cake layer. Set aside.

Once all of your tiers are fully stacked, crumb coat each tier in regular Italian Meringue buttercream and let chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Retrieve your cakes from the fridge and ice again with more Italian Meringue buttercream, using an icing spatula and a bench scraper to get the edges nice and smooth. Return to fridge for a final 30-minute chill.

Once your cakes are completely chilled, it’s time to dowel! Using a ruler, find the centre of your bottom cake tier and mark 8 dots around the center point to form a circle. Poke a dowel into one of the marks on your cake and make a mark on the dowel that is flush with the top of the cake. Cut 4 of your dowels to the proper size to make 8 equal-length dowels before placing into your cake in a circular fashion. Set aside.

Using the same method as mentioned above, find the centre of your middle 7” cake tier and mark 6 dots around the center point to form a circle. Again, poke a dowel into one of the marks on your cake and make a mark on the dowel that is flush with the top of the cake. Cut 43of your dowels to the proper size to make 6 equal-length dowels before placing into your cake in a circular fashion. Once the dowels are in place, stack your middle tier on top of your bottom tier.

Have fun creating a unique egg pattern around the sides of your cake! If your buttercream is still too cold the eggs may not stick.  Test one egg on the surface of the cake in an inconspicuous place that you know you’ll be covering. Allow you cake to sit out for a bit, until you buttercream softens slightly, and then begin decorating. Place the Cadbury Mini Egg around your cake layers to create patterns. I decorated each layer accordingly:

• Bottom Tier - vertical pattern, playing with the colours in single, double and triple lines
• Middle Tier - one layer of green eggs around the base

Top Tier - diagonal pattern, in colour rows of two

Once the cakes are all assembled and the Mini Eggs are secure, it’s time to decorate!! Create some edible gold paint using some gold luster dust and a little bit of clear food grade alcohol. Have some fun splattering your gold paint all over your cake using a small paint brush, focusing on the eggs primarily, but allowing the paint to splatter on the buttercream too. Just, don’t splatter your face like I did!