la coco noire.

As you can see, I didn't even get a chance to photograph this thing before it was already half way gone. Vultures, I tell you, vultures. But. This was sooooooo easy to make - the whole thing was mixed up and in the oven within 15 minutes. Considering how good it tastes, I cannot recommend this cake recipe highly enough for anyone who wants to eat cake but can't really be bothered to spend hours slaving in the kitchen. Aka me. This cake is for me (but you're welcome to try it too).

Ingredients: (Cake) 225g soft butter  //  225g muscovado sugar  //  225g self raising flower  //  1 tsp baking powder  //  4 large eggs  //  4 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tbsp of boiling water

(Icing) 175g soft butter  //  350g icing sugar  //  4 tsp instant coffee dissolved again

Method: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and butter two round cake tins. Mix all of the cake ingredients together - except the coffee - and when they're smoothly mixed...add the coffee (I'm serious...that's literally it). Divide between the tins and bake for 25-30 minutes.

While that's getting its bake on, mix the butter and sugar together for the icing. When mixed add the instant coffee again. Voila.

Nowwwwwww when the cake is out of the oven and cooled down, you can either leave it as it is or cut the cakes in half and make a four tier cake. Your choice! We made a three tier cake because one of the layers didn't make it to the icing process before being eaten. We couldn't wait for it to cool down and it looked and smelt SO GOOD. No regrets. Anyway, If you do make this, I'd love to know what you thought of it and how it went down with a cup of tea in the morning. I've got my eye on a Zebra cake from Lily Vanilli's Sweet Tooth book this Wednesday too...