Speckled Mocha Cake for Valentines Day

I've finally got around to posting this - approximately four weeks after the event!!

Andy loves coffee cake.  He also enjoys drinking the occcasional mocha.  And so this cake, which combines the two, seemed like a nice idea to make him as a gift on Valentine's Day - particularly after he'd shamed me on the V-Day morning by giving me a wonderful locket containing photos of our boys and I had failed to come up with any gift.  Yes, sometimes I am a rubbish wife when it comes to romance :o  Thankfully, this cake made up in some way for my lack of forward planning!

These were the ingredients the lovely 'Great British Bake Off' book advised me to use:-

For the sponge:-
175g unsalted softened butter
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs at room temp
175g self-raising flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1& 1/2 tablespoons instand coffee dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
 50g dark chocolate

For the filling
50g dark chocolate, grated
1 tablespoon instand coffee dissolved in 1 tablespoon of water
50g unsalted softened butter
100g icing sugar, sifted

Extra icing sugar to sift onto top of cake when finished.

I preheated the oven to 180C. The butter was mixed util creamy before adding the sugar and beating in until the mixture became very pale and fluffy - it can feel like hard work so bear with it, you'll get there in the end!

The eggs were whisked with a fork and gradually added to the butter mixture, beating in well each time.The flour and baking powder were sifted and were folded in gently(with a metal spoon) to the butter mixture followed by the coffee and grated chocolate.

The mixture was divided between 2 tins and baked for approx 20 mins until the sponges sprang back when pressed.  The sponges were left to cool.

To make the filling, the chocolate was broken into pieces into a glass bowl that was placed above a pan of hot water on the stove.  The coffee (dissolved in water) was added and the mixture stirred until all the cholcolate had melted.  The butter was stirred in and then the icing sugar was added  and mixed in.  I left the mixture to cool until it became thick enough to spread onto one of the sponges.  The other sponge was placed on top. 

Icing sugar was gently dusted (through a sieve) on top to finish. I made a heart shape from baking parchment to make the pattern.

Delicious!

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So delicious in fact that I baked this again as part of an early Mothers Day celebration last weekend.