Coffee Cake

Coffee cake is my favourite (and it was my mum's too). This is basically an all-in-one Victoria Sandwich. The fudge icing is my adaptation of a Dan Lepard recipe.

250 g unsalted butter
250 g castor sugar
4 eggs
250 g self-raising flour
1teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 2 tablespoons hot water

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and use an electric mixer to mix well to form a soft dropping consistency. (You could use a food processor, or a wooden spoon and a lot of effort.) Divide between 2 greased and lined sandwich tins 20 cm in diameter.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 deg/ 160 deg fan/ gas mark 4 for about 25 to 30 minutes until just firm to the touch and shrinking away from the sides of the tin. Cool for five minutes, then turn out on to a cooling rack.

3 tablespoons cornflour

1 teaspoon cocoa

1 tablespoon instant coffee

225 ml milk

115 g light muscovado sugar

1.5 tablespoons golden syrup

190 g white chocolate

40 g unsalted butter

icing sugar as needed

Whisk the cornflour, milk, cocoa, coffee, sugar and golden syrup together in a saucepan. Heat, whisking constantly, until just boiling and thickened. Turn off the heat and stir in the chocolate until melted and smooth. Cool until just warm, then gradually beat in the butter in small pieces. Chill, then beat in a little icing sugar if it needs to be thicker.

Use about a quarter of the icing to sandwich the cakes together. Swirl the rest over the top and sides with a pallet knife. Decorate with grated white chocolate and dust with cocoa powder - I used a rack to stencil a pattern.

Enjoy!