Chococcino Cake

This was a bake for a charity bake sale at Mr Birdie’s work. One of his colleagues, Keith Spicer, has just completed the amazing feat of walking from Land’s End to John o’ Groats for the charity ‘Sands’ (The stillbirth and neonatal death charity). Keith has a blog where he documented his walk which you can read here. Keith is trying to raise £10,000 and he has a JustGiving page where you can make a donation if you’re feeling generous.

This is BBC Good Food recipe I first made a couple of years ago to celebrate passing my Masters degree. It combines a chocolate sponge with a coffee filling which to me is a perfect combination! I have to say this attempt was more successful than my previous one (although I was slightly disappointed with how my sponges rose.) This is an easy recipe to prepare and makes the perfect accompaniment to a cup of coffee. You will need two 20cm sandwich tins.

Ingredients:

For the sponge
200g butter (soft, plus extra for greasing)
1 teaspoon baking powder
85g good-quality cocoa powder
140g self-raising flour
200g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tablespoons milk

For the filling and icing
2 x 250g tubs mascarpone
85g golden caster sugar
4 tablespoons very strong coffee (4 tablespoons instant coffee dissolved in 4 tablespoons of boiling water)
50g dark chocolate (for grating)

Method:
1) Heat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease and line the sandwich tins with baking parchment, then lightly grease the parchment.
2) Sift the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder into a large bowl, then tip in all the other sponge ingredients. Using an electric whisk, beat everything together until smooth.

Sift the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder

Add the other ingredients

Beat until smooth

3) Divide the mix between the two cake tins, then bake for 20-25 minutes until cooked and golden.

4) When cool enough to handle, remove the cakes from the tins, then leave to cool completely on a rack.
5) For the filling, beat the mascarpone and sugar together, then beat in the coffee (I found it best to add coffee bit by bit so you can control the consistency).