Chocolate Chocolate Bailey's Cake

No, that's not a typo. I just felt like this cake was so chocolatey that I needed to emphasise the amount of chocolate by repeating the word in its name.

Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog is celebrating We Should Cocoa's third anniversary this month. In honour of this chocolatey celebration, she has asked us to come up with a Showstopper Cake (chocolate themed, of course). Despite eating far too much cake in far too short a time period last time I made a chocolate cake, I've decided to go for it and make this Chocolate Chocolate Bailey's Cake.

                               

The counterparts are actually very simple: chocolate cake, sandwiched with Bailey's Cloud Icing (which I debuted on these Raspberry Cupcakes With Bailey's Icing), smothered in Chocolate Cloud Icing. I do love this icing as it's relatively simple to make, providing you have an electric whisk handy, and tastes incredible. I adapt the recipe from Sweetapolita, and have made it countless times in the past twelve months without a hitch. Today this was not the case, and my icing was a lot softer than usual. I'm not sure if this has to do with using value chocolate, but the addition of some more icing sugar seemed to solve the problem.

I'm sad to say that the sprinkles adorning this cake (which I definitely over use on this blog) have almost run out and my local supermarket doesn't stock them, but I'm hoping this isn't a nationwide situation. I love those little multicoloured sugary discs. They go with everything!

Sprinkles or not, I encourage you to try this cake. The Bailey's icing in the middle is a nice surprise for those expecting just a chocolate cake (though maybe don't feed this to children...) and the cake is pretty simple to put together. I used an 8in springform tin for this and sliced the cake into thirds, but you could also divide the batter into three 8in tins. If you're using the standard 9in tins you might want to scale up the recipe to 1.5 times the amounts listed below.

Ingredients
For the chocolate cake

• 200g Caster Sugar
• 200g Butter
• 3 Eggs
• 150g Plain Flour
• 50g Cocoa Powder
• 2 Tsp Baking Powder
• 100mL Milk

For the Chocolate Cloud Frosting/ Bailey's Cloud Frosting

• 190g Icing Sugar
• 230g Butter
• 125g Dark Chocolate
• 30mL Bailey's (or discount brand)

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan and line an 8in springform tin with baking parchment.
• Put the caster sugar and butter (for the cake) into a mixing bowl and beat together until soft and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
• Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into the batter and fold in.
• Add enough milk to the batter to give a soft dropping consistency.
• Pour the batter into the tin and bake in the oven for 1hr15mins, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Turn the cake onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely before placing in the fridge for 30 mins.
• Use a palette knife and turntable (if you have one - if not, consider investing in one as they are invaluable when decorating cakes) to vertically slice the cake into three layers. It doesn't matter if it's not perfect!
• Make the frosting by using an electric whisk to beat the icing sugar and butter together for 3 mins.
• Melt the chocolate in a microwave or saucepan, then beat it into the buttercream mixture for 2 mins. You should have a frosting that holds its shape when you make a mark in it, but if not add another 75g icing sugar and beat for a further 2 mins.
• Place 2/3 of the frosting in a bowl and put to one side. 
• Add the Bailey's to the remaining frosting and whisk for 2 mins.
• Sandwich the cake layers together with the Bailey's frosting, then decorate the outside with the original frosting.

There are still six days left to enter Baking With Spirit, so make sure you remember to enter! This month's challenge is cider. 

I'm moving house at the end of next weekend, so I may not find time to bake. Keep an eye out for the Baking With Spirit round-up and new challenge in the following week, though!