Norwegian Spiced Chocolate Cake

for Clandestine Cake Club

The theme for a recent meeting of my local Clandestine Cake Club (CCC) was 'How to Hygge', which seems appropriate for mid-winter, as Hygge cooking concentrates on warming spicy flavours and 'comfort' food. Even though Hygge is a Danish word, the Swedes and Norwegians have the same concept of warmth and cosiness, particularly during the long dark winters. This meant I didn't feel constrained to search for only Danish recipes, fortunately. The problem with Scandinavian baking, from a CCC point of view, is that Scandinavians seem to be hotter on the types of baking that can't be taken to CCC - yeasted buns, small pastries, biscuits and tarts etc.

I have The Nordic Bakery Cookbook, and tried out the basic cake recipe in there, making a ginger cake, and although it was delicious, I felt that it was too dry and plain for a CCC meeting. Finding no relevant recipe books in the local library, I resorted to what I could find online - which was mostly recipes from The Nordic Bakery or Scandilicious. Signe Johansen's recipe for Spiced Chocolate Cake, from Scandilicious, soon caught my eye, but I was disappointed that the recipe made a very stodgy cake when I tried it (see photo, above) The batter was difficult to marble too, as it was so shallow - I hoped the layers would swirl more as they cooked.

At that point I was running out of time to try other recipes, so decided to embrace the concept of this Spiced Chocolate Cake (also known as Tropisk Aroma), by keeping the flavourings used in Johansen's recipe, which I'd really liked, but using an ordinary sponge cake recipe as a base. I also decided to make the three layers as a sandwich cake, as in this recipe, rather than layer the batters into one pan, and swirl them before baking, as in the original recipe, pictured here. While I was making changes, I also decided to use a rich chocolate fudge frosting and filling, rather than buttercream, which I find is sometimes too sickly.

Ingredients
225g butter, softened
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
250g SR flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon instant coffee, dissolved in 1 tablespoon milk
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg

50g melted plain chocolate, cooled to lukewarm
2 tablespoons cocoa

extra milk, as necessary

*Frosting: 200g plain chocolate (70% cocoa solids), 35g butter, 50mls milk, 2 generous tablespoons golden syrup.

Method
Prepare 2 x 20cm (8") sandwich tins, at least 4cm (about 1 1/2") deep, and preheat oven to 180C, fan 160C.
Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, coffee-flavoured milk, cinnamon and nutmeg into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until well blended and aerated. Add a little extra milk if necessary, to give a dropping consistency.
Weigh 500g of this batter into one of the sandwich tins and spread evenly.
Beat the melted chocolate and cocoa into the remaining portion of batter, again adding milk if necessary.
Spread this chocolate batter into the second sandwich tin.
Bake both cakes for 25-30 minutes, until risen and firm.
Cool in the tins for a few minutes, then turn out onto wire racks to finish cooling.
Make the frosting by melting the chocolate and butter together, either in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, or in a thick bottomed pan directly over a very low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and  beat in the milk and golden syrup. Cool until the fudgy frosting holds it's shape.
Split the coffee sponge layer in two horizontally, and place the bottom layer on a serving plate.
Using roughly 1/4 of the frosting each time, sandwich the chocolate layer between the two thinner coffee layers.
Spread the rest of the frosting on top of the assembled cake and decorate as you wish - a dusting of cocoa seems to be traditional, but I just marked a pattern using a fork.

* most versions of this cake that I've seen online completely cover the cake in a thick layer of chocolate buttercream. To do that with this frosting recipe I think you would need twice the amount I've given here!

I really liked the combination of flavours here! Chocolate and coffee always work well together but the combination of nutmeg and cinnamon added a very subtle warm spiciness. If I made this again I think I'd increase the spices to 2 teaspoons of each - the flavour was perhaps a little too subtle!