Sometimes I just get the urge to bake, and today the urge was for a coffee cake. I don’t know why, I really don’t make them often. Anyhow, I dug out a recipe from one of my old books for a Mocha Victoria Sponge. One layer coffee-flavoured, one layer chocolate, and slathered in coffee buttercream. That should hit the spot.
This week we have been participating in the South-West Nova Scotia Bioblitz, the aim to find as many species as possible in a defined area-for us this would be the area covered by the Municipality of Barrington, our own municipality, This has meant long days in the field and even longer hours editing and downloading photos to the recording database (iNaturalist, for those interested), so other things (housework, cooking, my artwork, etc.) have all taken a back seat since Monday. Even though we have not yet finished the Bioblitz (two more days to go), I had to scratch that baking urge so, when we got in this evening, I set to to make the cake. I must be mad!
It actually didn’t take too long. The longest bit was greasing and lining the cake tins! These are more from my venerable collection of elderly cake tins, two of a set of three loose-bottomed 8″ sandwich tins. The recipe called for 7″ tins, but I only have one in that size. Must get around to buying another one, some day.
Ingredients are pretty simple, self-raising flour (it’s a UK book, I think, so self-raising flour is often used), caster sugar (standard granulated in North America will do the job), butter (although I used soft margarine), eggs, strong black coffee and cocoa powder:
For the coffee flavour, when we used to have one of those pod coffee machines, I used to brew a strong espresso for this and it worked pretty well. However, we stopped using the pod machine; those pods are pretty unfriendly, environmentally (and purse-wise). Standard filter coffee, as we usually drink, would probably not be strong enough so I keep a very small bottle of instant coffee granules in the cupboard for cake-flavouring purposes. Luckily, it doesn’t go off quickly!
Both the coffee (a good sized heaped teaspoon, or to taste) and the cocoa powder (1 tablespoon) should be dissolved, separately, in 1-2 tbsp of boiling water before adding to the cake mixtures.
The Recipe:
for the sponge
175 g/6 oz/ ¾ cup butter or soft margarine
175 g/6 oz/ generous ¾ cup sugar (caster in the UK, granulated in North America)
3 eggs
175 g/ 6 oz/ 1 ½ cups self-raising flour
15 ml, 1 tbsp strong black coffee
15 ml/ 1 tbsp cocoa powder, mixed with 15-30 ml/1-2 tbsp boiling water
for the buttercream
150 g/5 oz/ generous ½ cup butter
275 g/10 oz/ 2 ½ cups icing sugar (powdered or confectioner’s sugar)
15 ml/ 1 tbsp coffee essence or 10ml/2 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 15-30 ml warm milk
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C/Gas 4 (n.b. I used 350F convection, and it worked fine). Grease and line two cake tins. Note that the recipe suggested just lining the bases but, with the loose-bottom tins I like to fully line them. The recipe suggested 7″ tins; I used 8″ and it worked, but 7″ would give you more depth of sponge.
Cream the butter or margarine with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating between each addition. Fold in the flour.
Divide the mixture into two bowls. Fold the coffee into one bowl and the cocoa into the other.
Either place each mixture into a separate tin (I did it this way, for speed), or add alternate spoonsfuls of each mixture into each tin (that would be fun!).
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the top springs back when touched, or a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven, turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
Meanwhile, make the buttercream. I used real butter for the buttercream; well, you just have to, really. Beat the butter until soft, gradually beat in all the remaining ingredients.
Sandwich together the two layers with buttercream, spread the remainder on the top and sides, if there is enough to go round. Because my cakes were a little larger than the recipe suggested, I decided to concentrate on a good wodge inside and on top, and leave the sides bare. If you are feeling posh, you can smooth the top and decorate. A coffee glace icing would be nice instead of the buttercream on the top, too, with maybe a few chocolate sprinkles.
Slice and serve, you’ll need a fork!
The Pudding Queen 