Moist Chocolate After Eight Cake

I have to share the recipe for my After Eight Cake. I've made it twice now. The first cake was a trial run and the second cake I made for a Clandestine Cake Club meeting.

The first was the two layer cake you see above. A lovely, moist chocolate cake sandwiched together with peppermint buttercream, then topped with chocolate buttercream, sprinkles and After Eight mint creams.I skimped a bit and used a cheaper version of after eights, but nobody at work minded. It was eaten in record time as word got out that it was in the staffroom. Everyone loved it.

So, I made it again for cake club, but I wasn't paying attention and used different cake tins. I soon found out when I realised there was too much cake batter for my two lined tins. Rather than start again, I decided to go for it and ended up with a four layer cake (I baked them for less time). I was worried it might not be as moist as the first cake, but my fears were unfounded and once again it proved very popular.

Photo courtesy of Foodess,

The original cake recipe came from a wonderful blog with the most stunning photos, called Foodess.

I got in touch with Jennifer who writes Foodess and she kindly gave me permission to print her recipe in metric for you (you can find the original recipe in cup measures here). I hope she doesn't mind me showing you how amazing and moist her cake looks.

The secret ingredient in this cake is coffee, but the most amazing thing about this cake is it's simplicity. There is no creaming or fancy techniques, you just throw all the ingredients in and whip them together into a batter, add hot coffee, give it a stir, pour it into lined tins, pop it into the oven and it is ready in just over half an hour.

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After Eight Cake

Written by Jacqueline Meldrum with kind permission from Foodess.

September 20, 2012

A moist chocolate cake filled with peppermint buttercream, then topped with chocolate buttercream, sprinkles and after eight mint creams. Divine!

Ingredients

• 225g plain flour
• 400g caster sugar
• 70g cocoa powder
• 1 ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 large eggs, whisked
• 250ml buttermilk (1 tbsp lemon juice of vinegar, topped up with milk to 250ml and left for at least 5 minutes)
• 115g butter, melted
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 200ml strong coffee, still hot

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180c/160c fan/350/gas mark 4. Grease two 18cm cake tins and line the bottom of each with greaseproof paper.2. In a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, add the flour, cocoa, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Give it is good stir with a metal spoon until it is well combined.3. Whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla and pour into the dry ingredients. Whisk until velvety smooth with either a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer. Next pour in the hot coffee and mix in with a spatula, until you have a runny mixture. (don’t panic, it will work)4. Pour the batter into the cake pans and bake in the middle of the oven for 35 minutes. A skewer should come out clean.5. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for a while, before tipping carefully onto a wire rack to continue cooling.

Details

Total time: 45 mins
Yield: 1 chocolate cake;

The recipe doesn't include buttercream, I don't measure my buttercream ingredients. For a two layer cake I use a 250g block of unsalted butter, diced and when it is soft, I whisk in icing sugar or cocoa powder until it is just right, adding a splash of milk to the mixture for a lovely smooth consistency and adding any extra flavours as I go.

If you feel more confident using a recipe for buttercream, here are a few:

• Chocolate Buttercream
• Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting 
• Lemon Frosting
• Nutella Buttercream
• Peanut Butter Frosting
• Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting