Cappuccino Cake

Hooray for annual leave! On Wednesday I broke up from work for a week and a half, time to relax, sleep in and see friends...expect in my case this is not going to happen! For the last nine years I have volunteered for a children's charity, so my week off will entail camping, lack of sleep and entertaining 65 children. It's become somewhat of a tradition that I bake various treats and goodies for the rest of the volunteers to enjoy before the kiddies arrive and this year is no different.

Last year my coffee and walnut cake went down really well so I thought I would do something similar. However in my plight to become a baker and one day feature on the Great British Bake Off, I'm currently trying to expand my repertoire and create some recipes of my own. So I thought this would be a great opportunity and it would also give me a recipe to enter into the Thornton's Chocolates competition to create a recipe that features some of their products.

Here goes then - I was toying around with different ways to create a mocha or cappuccino inspired cake with different flavoured layers. I'd got as far as one chocolate and one coffee when a moment of baking genius from my Mama Mia gave the finishing layer I needed - a classic vanilla. I'd been and brought some coffee flavoured Thornton's chocolates for the decoration and planned on making a coffee buttercream to tie it all together.

Right then, less chit chat, more baking!

To make this cappuccino cake you will need:

For the chocolate layer:

• 125g Butter
• 125g Caster Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 125g Self raising flour
• 60g dark chocolate, melted (you can use any but I used Thornton's)

For the coffee layer:

• 125g Butter
• 125g Caster Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 125g Self raising flour
• 1 tablespoon of instant coffee dissolved in 1 tablespoon of water

For the vanilla layer:

• 125g Butter
• 125g Caster Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 125g Self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste

For the coffee butter cream:

• 125g Butter
• 300 - 350g Icing sugar
• 1.5 tablespoons instant coffee dissolved in 1 tablespoon of milk
• 5 - 6 extra tablespoons of milk

For decoration:

• 1 pack of Thornton's cappuccino chocolates
• 1 pack of Thornton's coffee creams
• Lotus biscuits - roughly broken

To make the sponges:

• Cream the butter and the sugar, gradually add the egg before folding in the flour. For the coffee and chocolate layers this is when you then fold in the flavourings. For the vanilla layer, add the vanilla bean paste to the eggs to ensure that it gets evenly distributed. If you wanted, you could make one large sponge batch (omit all flavours). Once the basic sponge is made you would beed to weigh the mixture into three even portions and then fold in the flavours.
• Transfer you mixture into 3 lined round cake tins (mine were 20cm) and cook at 180c fan for between 20-25 minutes. Your cakes are done when they spring back to the touch and a skewer comes out clean.
• Allow your cakes to cool a little before taking them out of their tins and letting them cool completely. 

To make the buttercream:

• Using a freestanding or hand held electric mixture, whisk the butter until lighter in colour gradually add the icing sugar before adding the coffee and milk mixture. You will need to keep adding a little bit of milk at a time to get your buttercream to the right consistently for spreading. Once you are happy with the consistency continue to whisk for a couple more minutes to make your icing light and fluffy. 
• Try the mixture and if the coffee taste is too strong for your liking add a little more icing sugar to sweeten it.

To assemble:

• Put a small amount of icing on a cake board to act as 'glue'. Then assemble your sponges sandwiching with a small amount of buttercream. It doesn't really matter what order you do them in. I assembled mine according to colour starting with chocolate, coffee in the middle and vanilla on top - this has nothing to do with flavour combinations and is purely for aesthetic reasons!
• Once all three layers are assembled spread a thin layer of icing over the entire cake, refrigerate until the icing goes hard before adding a final thicker coat. This just helps to give a smooth finish. The first layer locks in the crumbs and the second layer gives the professional finishing touch. This technique is known in the business as 'crumb coating'.

• Decorate the top of the cake with your chosen chocolate in anyway you like, break up some lotus biscuits and sprinkle generously over your cake.

And that's all there is too it - my take on a cappuccino in cake form. If I liked coffee it would be perfect with a 'cuppa' - my Mama ensures me that it was delicious!

I'm signing off for a week now, my wellies are packed and my tent is calling me. Have a lovely week, enjoy the first episode of the Bake Off which starts this Wednesday 4th August, BBC1 at 8pm. I'll be catching up with it when I get home so no spoilers please!

Happy baking - Rach xxx

Just a wee note - Thornton's didn't pay me to write this post and I paid for my own ingredients.