Coffee cake

There are two things in this world which I cannot do without. Coffee and chocolate. They are perfectly good enjoyed separately, but something truly magical happens when they are combined.

The angels at Sarie Kos are responsible for this marvelous recipe.

Coffee cake

Cake

500 ml cake flour

180 ml cacao

7 ml baking powder

10 ml bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

500 ml sugar

2 eggs

250 ml milk

125 ml cooking oil

5 ml vanilla essence

250 ml strong coffee

Icing

80 g soft butter

180 ml cacao

500 ml icing sugar

60 ml strong coffee

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and thoroughly grease two cake tins.

Sift together the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Mix together with a wooden spoon. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla essence. Add to the dry ingredients. Throw in the coffee and mix together using an electric beater for 2 minutes. The mixture has to be completely lump-free. Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for 35 - 40 minutes. Allow the cakes to cool in their tins and remove once they have cooled completely.

The cake is decorated with a mocha butter icing. Make sure your cakes are completely cooled before you put the icing on or it will melt into a mess. To make the icing, put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with an electric beater until the mixture has a smooth consistency. You will need to cut the tops of your cake with a serrated knife if you want a flat surface. Apply half of the icing to the top of one of the cakes. Put the second cake on top of it and finish with the rest of the icing.

My icing skills are nowhere near good enough to even try to be fancy so I just used a spatula to spread the icing on my cakes. But who cares if it looks this good, right?