Chocolate ripple cake

One of Australia’s favourite festive desserts: the choc ripple cake

This chocolate ripple cake is a revelation: it’s a recipe with a handful of ingredients and the result is loved by Aussies around the country. Its simplicity paired with its show-stopping appeal sees it landing on Christmas tables throughout the festive season and beyond. Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting it right for your celebration.

Let’s talk about chocolate ripple cake shapes

There’s nothing tricky about this recipe, but if there are two elements you need to consider, they’re the shape of the cake and how you’re going to cut it. We’ve made ours into a chocolate ripple log, but you can also make a ring shape. We’ve cut our log straight across for clean vertical lines, but if you cut the pieces diagonally, you’ll get a different effect altogether. The same goes for the Christmas wreath cake shape – cut straight or diagonally for different slice styles. 

An insider’s tip for the perfect Christmas chocolate ripple cake presentation

For a choc ripple that looks as good as ours, take one-third of the cream and place it in a separate bowl in the fridge. You’re going to use this cream at the end to coat the outside of the log. Because the cream you use to sandwich the biscuits together may get crumbs in it, reserving a crumb-free portion to coat the log at the end is a good idea.  

How to make chocolate ripple cake

Now, to start. Spread some of the remaining cream along the serving plate. This cream is your foundation to stabilise the biscuits. Spread the hazelnut spread and cream between your chocolate ripple biscuits and sandwich two together. Add a little more cream to the outside of the biscuit – this is your ‘glue’ for sticking the biscuit sandwiches together. Stand upright on the serving plate on the cream. Assemble the biscuit sandwiches in rows to make a log. Coat the whole log using your reserved cream and into the fridge it goes. 

Now for some chocolate ripple cake variations

The beauty of this cake is its simplicity. If you want to take it up a notch, there are some other variations to try. Let’s start with the biscuits – you want a hard biscuit like the Choc Ripple but if that’s not your jam, go for something like a Ginger Nut or an Anzac biscuit. Speaking of jam… you can sandwich the biscuits together with jam (instead of hazelnut spread like we’ve used). Finally, the most important element of the dish is the cream. You can marble through some melted chocolate, jam or even lemon curd – make sure your flavours match your bikkie of choice. If you love the idea of using classic Aussie biscuits in your sweet treats, give these Tim Tam, Baileys and Iced Vovo truffles a go, too.

Go crazy with your toppings

Anything goes when it comes to chocolate ripple cake decoration ideas. Fresh fruit is a winner. We’ve used berries but any summer fruit is delicious here (mangoes, pineapple, stone fruit, yes please!). Elevate the chocolate ripple with roughly chopped chocolate bars, salted caramel sauce, macerated cherries or praline. For more easy recipes to try, check out our Christmas desserts collection for ideas and inspiration.