Mocha Marbled Sandwich Cake

My children are getting to the age where I don't tell people how old they are, because it makes me seem so old! Suffice to say, they are both over 30 years old now.  CT is the July child - his birthday is very near to mine, so we either share a cake, or my birthday gets forgotten. That's not as bad as it sounds - we've never made a huge thing out of birthdays once the children had passsed the stage of needing novelty cakes. (The hours I spent every year with sponge cakes cut to odd shapes, templates, fondant icing, marzipan and an array of food colours will long be remembered!)

A few weeks ago, CT noticed this Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe in the Weekend Guardian, and commented on how good it looked. So that was his birthday cake sorted - he's even allowed butter for special occasions.

This is basically a sponge cake made from two batters marbled together - one flavoured with coffee and the other with cocoa to give a darker batter. Both batters are made with light brown sugar to give extra flavour. The two layers are sandwiched and topped with coffee flavoured buttercream, and I decorated with a mix of chocolate stars and cappuccino sprinkles.

Gooey buttercream cakes aren't my favourite sort of cake, but they are a nice treat for a special occasion. This was a light textured and  well flavoured cake. The coffee kept the buttercream from being too sweet and the marbling of the two batters gave an interesting appearance. The cocoa was more for colour than flavour - the coffee flavour was much stronger than any chocolate flavour present.