Cheers Dad: Fathers’ Day Chocolate and Tia Maria Cake

Socks? No. Tie? Too boring. Toblerone? Done it quite a few times. Then what would be a suitable fathers’ day gift to say thank you?

For Mothers’ Day we (my brothers and I) cooked dinner – including chocolate and mango mousse – but that doesn’t really seem like being helpful as he’s not cooking tonight. As a compromise we’ll take him out for lunch. Not today as my esteemed siblings are absent (and every dad and his dog will be getting treated to same-y, rubbish menus today) so we will take him out later in the week when we can all enjoy it.

That just leaves one problem. Being the bestest of the bestest son (and fabulous with grammar) how on earth do I tell him that we’ve done nothing except get him a card of a meerkat mowing the lawn (seriously)? The logical solution (in my head) was to make him a cake, one which he would enjoy.

Fathers’ Day Chocolate and Tia Maria Cake

For several reasons I was taught to bake cakes in proportions, not weights; so for flour, butter and sugar they are measured by the weight of the eggs.

Ingredients:

The Cake:
3 Eggs
Self Raising Flour (3 eggs’ worth)
Dark Brown Sugar (1 egg’s worth)
Caster Sugar (2 eggs’ worth)
Butter (3 eggs’ worth)
25 ml Tia Maria
25 ml Strong Espresso
2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder

The Icing:
200g Icing Sugar (sifted)
60g Butter
50ml Tia Maria
1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder
1 Tablespoon of milk
Dark Chocolate covered Coffee Beans (to Decorate)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C and line two 20cm cake tins.
2. Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl (with an electric whisk, if you’re as lazy as me), then sift in the flour and the cocoa powder.
3. Add in the Tia Maria and Espresso and mix until light and ‘fluffy’. Add a little milk if it looks a little dry.
4. Transfer into the cake tins and bake in the centre of the oven for about 20 minutes, or until springy to the touch. Remove and allow to cool.
5. Make the buttercream carefully (to avoid icing sugar eruptions) mix the icing sugar, butter, cocoa powder and Tia Maria.
6. Spread liberally between the layers and on the top.
7. Give to one happy dad and say thank you.

Cr