Basic Sponge Cake with Coffee Icing

I'm not really into cake. Most of the time I could live without it. Most of the time... about 10% of the time I want to mainline coffee cake. My mother showed me how to make this when I was quite young, partly because it's a nice thing to do and I think partly so I could bloody well start making it myself.

We cheat and use Camp coffee rather than making it fresh but I really like it this way... you can make up the coffee yourself if you would rather. I also do this in a slightly old fashioned way by weighing the eggs - I like doing it this way because I find the sponge is more moist. Will try and get a photograph of a slice before it's completely gone...

Coffee Cake

3 eggs,
butter
self-raising flour
caster sugar

For the butter icing:
200g icing sugar
85g butter
Camp coffee or strong instant coffee

The first thing I do is take the butter out of fridge. You want it to be soft so your arms don't fall off. You can make this in a mixer but I prefer to do it by hand. You will need two springform cake tins or loose bottomed ones. Approximately 7 1/2-8 inches - the bottoms lined with greaseproof paper and the sides greased with butter. 

Preheat the oven to 120C/250C/Gas Mark 1/2.

Prepared cake tins

1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and weigh them. You will then need the same amount of butter, sugar and self-raising flour.

2. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat until light and fluffy.

Creaming the butter and sugar together

3. Beat the eggs and then gradually add to the creamed mixture. If it curdles then add a handful of sifted flour.

4. Fold in the sieved flour with a metal spoon.

5. Diving the mixture between the two tins and bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes until risen and golden. Check they are cooked by putting a metal skewer into the middle - if it comes out clean they're done, if not, put them back in the oven for a few more minutes.

6. Cool on a rack in their tins until they are cool enough to be removed.

7. While the cakes are cooling make the icing by mixing together the icing sugar and butter until you have a paste. Then add the coffee a tiny bit at a time until you are happy with it. Put in the fridge until the cake is completely cool and ready to be iced.

8. Ice the cakes when they are cool. I use a metal spatula and do the top first so I can use as much as possible for the middle.