OK – first, considering that I have any international readers (hi! Love you!) I should probably explain what a Golden Gaytime is. According to Wikipedia, it is a ‘popular ice cream snack’ created in 1959. The deal with this bad boy is that it’s got a layer of toffee ice cream, wrapped around a layer of vanilla ice cream, all dipped in a chocolate coating, and covered in crunchy honeycomb-cookie pieces. The slogan for this ice cream bar is ‘it’s hard to have a Gaytime on your own’.
So needless to say, it is awesomeness on every level. It’s an absolute Australian classic, still going strong from 1959 to today, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone here who doesn’t love them. So, since this week we’re all about Aussie classics, I give you my Golden Gaytime Cake! This beast has layers of chocolate cake, filled with a toffee-flavoured mousse, topped with dripping chocolate and plenty of crushed honeycomb pieces.
It’s is DEFINITELY a gay time. The chocolate cake is my favourite – super rich, super chocolatey, super damp – and the filling is exactly the same barely-there hint of toffee that the ice creams serve up. If you’re looking for a strong toffee flavour, you’ll be disappointed, because that’s not what a Golden Gaytime is about. It’s about the bitter chocolate, super creamy centre, and the crunchy crunchy textural goodness on the outside.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here – I think a Golden Gaytime Cake is exactly what Australians AND non-Australians everywhere should make on Tuesday to celebrate Australia Day. I mean even if you’ve never been here, you should still celebrate. It’s fun, and most of us down here are pretty cool. Oh, and we all ride Kangaroos to school. And drop bears are definitely real. But mainly it’s just super hot, every animal can kill you, we just found a 7 metre long shark (that’s 23 feet) off the South coast, and the people are very friendly. STRAYA MATE!
xx Sarah.
- 1 + ¾ cups (265g) all purpose flour
- 1 + ½ cups (300g) caster sugar
- ½ cup (110g) brown sugar
- ¾ cup (70g) cocoa powder
- 2 tsp instant espresso powder
- 2 tsp baking soda (bicarb)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup (250ml) buttermilk
- ½ cup flavourless oil (I use grapeseed)
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
- 1 cup (250ml) hot water
- 2 tsp gelatin powder
- 1 cup (250ml) dulce de leche (or top 'n fill)
- 2 cups (500ml) thickened cream (heavy whipping cream if you're in the US)
- 100g (4oz) milk chocolate
- ⅓ cup (80ml) cream
- Chocolate-coated honeycomb (I used 2x Crunchie bars)
- First make the cakes. Grease and line two 7 inch (18cm) cake tins, and preheat the oven to 350F/170C no fan.
- Place all the dry ingredients for the cake (everything from flour to salt) into a very large mixing bowl, and stir very vigorously with a whisk to get out any lumps.
- In a large measuring jug, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla, then stir into the dry ingredients. Finally pour the hot water into the mix, and stir until everything is smooth and combined. The batter is fairly liquid - like custard.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two cake tins, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until springing back when touched in the centre, and a skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs. Place the cakes in their tins on a wire rack, and leave to cool completely.
- Now, you will have to line a tin with acetate, which is clear plastic. In a pinch, you can use the clear pieces of plastic that you would put on the front of a bound document (i do it all the time).
- So just place a piece of clear plastic (or two a4 pieces) into a 7inch (18cm) tin, and tape up the join, so that you have a plastic cylinder inside your cake tin, which is about 7 inches/18cm tall. Place one of the cake layers into the bottom of the tin.
- Place 2 tbsp of very hot water into a small bowl, and sprinkle over the gelatin, stirring until it is dissolved. Heat the dulce de leche in a saucepan, and stir until there are no lumps, and the mixture is steaming. Remove from the heat, and stir in the gelatin, and then set aside to cool to room temperature.
- Whip the cream to medium peaks, and then fold into the cooled dulce de leche mixture, until there are no streaks in the mixture. Pour half of this mixture onto the cake layer inside the acetate-lined tin.
- Slice the remaining cake layer in half, and place the uglier half on top of the dulce de leche layer. Press down slightly, to spread the filling out, and then pour over the remaining filling, and top with the final layer of cake. Place in the fridge for at least 4 hours to set.
- To serve, melt the chocolate and cream together in a small saucepan over a low heat, stirring gently. Pour the chocolate over the cake and spread it to the edges, allowing it to drip over the sides. Chop up half the honeycomb and scatter around the edge of the cake, and cut the rest into big shards, placing them standing up, just off centre. Serve immediately.
i’m already in love with this cake just based off its name! and it’s no wonder why it brings happy times (let’s be real, as soon as dulce de leche whipped cream mousse pops up it’s a good sign)
What a fantastic way to have a gay time, than with a golden gay time cake. I love honeycomb and our eldest daughter is a massive Crunchie (other honeycomb bars are available!!!) fan. This could be the cake that breaks the chocolate marble cake tradition, she has had every year for her birthday. Fab post. Sammie x
I want to eat this whole cake right now!!! It looks sooo good. Question, is the cream listed under the toppings the same as thickened cream, and if so what is the difference?
Hey Jenna – they’re totally the same. Thanks for the pick up! xx
My all time favourite ice-cream ‘the gay time’ and sarah you are so creative and ingenious and I can’t wait to try this cake, it looks so divine!
Oh my god. Sarah!!! I’m going to find an excuse to make this, this weekend :P
BEAUTIFUL Sarah!! I’m so jealous of your pic-taking skills! Always a fan!! -Aaron
O-MAH-GAWD, WOMAN! Sorry to yell. This is going to be my birthday cake (with some vegan swaps).
Oh Australia, quit it with the funny names! You should win a prize for avoiding all sorts of wordplay in this post. This cake should also win a prize–hubba hubba!
I love the confused look non-Aussies give you when you say you’re going to have a Gaytime!! 1959 was such an innocent time ?
STRAYA! Indeed! I think this might need to replace the Pavlova as our national dessert Sarah. What a towering, delicious, monument of a gay time! The only thing that could make this any more perfect for Australia Day is if Dame Edna herself was perched on top.
Puttin’ on my cossie, opening up a xxxx (not really, it ‘s a bottle of white from NZ – Shhh – no one but us knows the difference anyway), setting the TV up to watch the cricket (again, not really, it’s American Horror Story), and slicing myself off a chunk of this gorgeous, glorious, gay time!
Wow !! I’d be thrilled to celebrate australia day with a cake like this… even though the washington dc area will likely still be digging out of a couple feet of snow on tuesday! simply gorgeous, sarah!
Hello hello from Vienna, Austria! This looks crazy good! I just love honeycomb, which isn”t something your see very often around here. I First learned about the gaytime bar on “master chef Australia” – I love that show. :)
oh wow, this looks great. A lot of my favourite flavours have been put together in this cake.
The name golden gaytime is so wonderfully dated – it sounds like something much more risque now!
have a great australia day!
aBSOLUTE DIVINE MADNESS. lOVE IT.
This cake looks like a happy dance party!! This is gorgeous!
This cake looks so delicious! I love the colors.
Kari
Hey – we love you too. thst goes for the cake as well.
I’m an Aussie through and through but I’ve never hear of dulce de leche (or top ‘n fill). I’d definitely have a Gaytime if I knew what this was! …Unless Top’N Fill is that tinned caramel?
Dulce de leche is a cooked Latin-American milk caramel, and top n fill is the tinned stuff – they’re pretty much the same product. xx
Oooh my god, this looks sooo freaking good! Since i am one of those international readers, how could i substitute the Crunchie bars? We really don’t have anything like it here in the Netherlands…
I have never made honeycomb myself and have no idea if its hard to do…..
I wish you could have heard me as I read and scrolled though these pictures. it was a bunch of unintelligible sounds followed by a deeply depressed noise that this cake is not in my kitchen right now and there are no golden gaytimes in america!!
Wow that is one incredible cake! Wish I had one of those gaytime thingies, they sound delish. Maybe I can get one shipped from Australia…? :P Love this cake though, the asymmetrical design is so cool!
First off, this cake looks deish. Secondly, I LOVE that you referred to it as “damp” lol! Not that dreaded “m” word…..
Hi Sarah, this is perfect for my son’s upcoming birthday party, can I freeze the cake do you think?
Hey Kat! The actual cake layers freeze excellently and can definitely be made in advance. I wouldn’t freeze the entire, assembled cake, purely because the filling is made from whipped cream, which tends to separate when it’s frozen and defrosted. But the cake will keep well for at least 2 days, well covered in the fridge! xx
OH MY GOD!!!! Um…i wanna move to Australia and have a golden gaytime bar….because that sounds amazingggg -and this cake is insane. I want it, I neeeeeed it!
Hi Sarah
I’m making this for a friends 30th and juat wondering if it loses something if it’s not served immediately after doing the topping? I waa going to do the topping a few hours in advance. Would this still be ok? Cheers
Hey Teagan, The topping is totally fine to do in advance! Just pop it back in the fridge, and it will set into a firm ganache. It won’t be quite as shiny, but still totally delicious (I would leave the honeycomb-sprinkling until the last minute though – it tends to melt in the humid air of the fridge). xx
Fantastic!!! Thanks so much for your prompt reply :) the layers look great and the mousse has set beautifully so I’m going to do the topping now (except for the honeycomb). Thanks again xx
Hi there. This looks amazing! Just wondering if you think it would work well in 6 inch cake pans…if so, do you think 170C is still ok and for how long? Also, where would I get acetate sheets from? And how would I get the assembled cake out of the tin? Sorry for all the questions!! Thanks!
Thanks Rebecca! In order to use 6 inch tins, I would bake this as three layers instead of two – does that make sense? So divide the batter between 3 six inch tins (or bake a third of the batter at a time, or whatever) at 170C, probably for the same amount of time, though start checking after 30mins. Two six inch layers would likely overflow, as this is quite a thick cake.
Acetate can be found online, or at specialty baking shops (or as the recipe says, use clear plastic sheets from Officeworks). As for how to get the assembled cake out of the tin, ideally you would use a loose bottomed, or springform tin, in which case just unclasp it, or push it up through the bottom of the tin, and then peel away the plastic. If you have a fixed tin, you would have to try and flip it upside down to get it out – which would probably be OK as long as you’re careful and confident, but a loose bottom or springform tin will be 6000x easier.
Thanks so much! I didn’t see the bit about Officeworks, sorry!
Hi again Sarah. Sorry to be a pain, but just wondering if this would work without the plastic sheets? How runny is the filling and do you think it would still set nicely (although perhaps not as neatly) if I just spread it in between the layers and keep it in the fridge without the plastic? Thanks, hope that makes sense!
Hey Rebecca – Sadly, no, you really need a mold in which the mousse filling can set. Trust me, I’m all about doing things the easiest possible way! It’s too liquid to hold on it’s own. xx
Not as difficult as I anticipated, with some good planning (and assistance)! It was delicious and a crowd-pleaser, not too rich and looks very impressive! Thanks so much for the recipe and inspiration!