Do not let the ingredients fool you, mocha cake is very easy to make and turns out well every time. A pleaser for coffee lovers and keeps well for one week at room temperature. The recipe is from an old issue of Burda-Cookery magazine. You will find below the exact recipe though I did not use the icing and covered the cake with melted chocolate instead. The holly leaves are made of marzipan, colored with dots of red and green food colouring. I am really not keen on using even the safest additives; but once a year would not harm anyone ( I hope!?)
- 6 tablespoons ground coffee
- 200 gr butter (room temperature)
- 175 gr sugar
- 1 sachet vanilla sugar
- pinch of salt
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 4 eggs
- 200 gr ground almonds
- 200 gr all purpose flour
- 1 sachet baking powder
- 100 gr grated chocolate
- 3 tablespoons Amaretto liqueur
- 300 gr icing sugar
- 100 gr marzipan (almond paste)
For the start heat the oven to 175C and brew 200 ml very strong coffee and set aside to cool. In a mixing bowl stir together butter, sugar, vanilla sugar, salt and cinnamon. Then add the eggs one by one and keep stirring until the sugar has completely dissolved. Add 125 ml coffee, ground almonds, flour, baking powder and grated chocolate and stir. Fill the dough into a greased start shaped pan and place in the oven for one hour (mine took additional 10 minutes to
be done). Turn the cake out of the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack. Drip the Amaretto on the cake while it is hot.
The original recipe recommends sifting 250 gr icing sugar and kneading it to a smooth paste by adding the remaining coffee, then covering the cake with it. The remaining sugar is added to almond paste, rolled out and cut in star shapes to decorate the cake. I used a mixture of 100 gr melted dark couverture and 50ml cream, poured it over the cake and added the leaves. You can also leave it plain ( even less calories:-) and just sift some powdered sugar on the cake.
I make this cake at new years's eve and my mother in law hides a coin inside. After the change of the year we cut the cake in portions according to the number of the guests and who finds the coin in his/her part would be the luckiest in the coming year.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!
It feels so nice to have such a warm welcome from you Angelika, thank you so much! Surely I have so much to learn about blogging and I thank you in advance for your support. It is really such a nice atmosphere to make new friends and share interests. Hugs and kisses back to you and family.