A PECULIAR CAKE

Indeed this cake is very strange, with the most peculiar mix of ingredients but somehow it just works! Chocolate, Coffee and Lemon fight with your tastebuds for recognition! I think chocolate just about wins but the coffee smell does dominate. In the build up to Christmas I have decorated it with some marzipan and icing, but that is optional, of course. It just adds to the strange mix - only more so!

Grease and line the bottom of a 6” spring form cake tin. Preheat your fan oven to about 165C

Cream together, until light and fluffy:

4oz softened butter

3 oz caster sugar

then add:

the zest of a lemon

4 oz finely chopped chocolate - I used 70% cocoa solids

a heaped dessertspoon of instant coffee, mixed with a teaspoon of boiling water

Whisk again, then add:

2 eggs [with a little of the flours]

Beat in:

2oz Plain Flour

2 oz Cornflour

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 dessertspoon brandy or rum

Finally add:

2 oz chopped glace cherries

2 oz very very finely chopped mixed peel [M&S’s are brilliant]

Tip into your prepared tin and bake for about 50 - 55 mins. Cool in the tin for a few mins then cool on a rack. The smell is a heady mix of chocolate and coffee! When cold decorate. I flavoured this icing with lemon extract to continue the theme. Enjoy!