Unsurprisingly, with three such star ingredients, this is a great cake.

Serves: 10 – 12 quite large slices

Level: Easy

Time: 35 – 40 min. preparing; 25 min. baking; 15 min. for filling and topping then time in the fridge.

Need: Two 20cm/8” round tins, ideally loose bottomed

Cake ingredients

200g/7oz self raising flour
20g/¾oz cocoa powder
¼ tsp of salt
175g/6oz unsalted butter, softened
175g/6oz caster sugar
3 large eggs
3 – 4 tsp instant coffee granules*
50g/1¾oz ground almonds (optional)
1 tsp vanilla extract
50ml/1¾fl oz warm milk

*Use good quality coffee, not cheap and nasty rubbish

For the filling/topping

300ml/10fl oz double cream
Around 100g/3½oz icing sugar (or to taste: a little less or more)
Around 50g/1¾oz dark chocolate (some to grate, some to chop)

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200°C / Fan 180°C / 400°F / Gas 6. Grease the tins and line the bases with parchment paper.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.

3. Beat the softened butter in a large bowl then add the sugar and beat again until the sugar is blended in with no “gritty” texture.

4. Beat in the eggs one by one, adding a teaspoon of “set-aside” flour each time to avoid curdling the mixture. Fold in the rest of the flour mixture and the (optional*) ground almonds using a large metal spoon or spatula.

* It’s a good recipe with or without the almonds, but I think they improve the keeping quality of any cake – and taste good too, of course.

5. Mix the coffee granules and vanilla extract into the warm milk then stir this into the main mixture.

6. Divide the mixture equally into the two tins, level the surfaces and bake for around 25 minutes – until the sides of the cakes are pulling away from inside the tins or when a skewer inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean and dry.

7. Leave the cakes in their tins for 5 – 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool fully. Once cool invert and select the flattest for the top surface.

8. For the filling and topping, whisk the double cream and icing sugar until almost at stiff peak stage. Use about a quarter of this mixture to coat the upper surface of the cake. This will be the top. Grate with chocolate.

9. Return to the cream and whisk a little more then stir in some chopped chocolate. (It’s up to you how much, but avoid having really big chunks, especially if you plan to pipe it on.) Spoon or pipe this mixture as the mid layer between the two cakes. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours to firm up.

Tip: If your cream is not stiff enough and the two cakes are not holding together well, push three or four cocktail sticks, or something longer, down into both layers before the cake goes in the fridge, but leave a little bit showing on each stick so that you can remove them later.

I hope you enjoy this lovely cake. If you want more cake recipes click this link, or have a look at my site for lots of other great recipes, both sweet and savoury. Below are a few that I’d love you to try:

Coffee and Almond Crunch Cake