Coffee cake #2 (and birthday #3)

On Saturday it was time to make coffee cake number two. The verdict after coffee cake number one was that it was good but that it would nice if the sponge was a little stronger as it was hard to taste the coffee in it (although the icing was very coffee-ish). I therefore made sure to make stronger coffee this time, although not being a coffee drinker the strength was still guess work.

Making the sponge went nice and smoothly again (even working in someone else's kitchen when you're not sure where things are!). The icing, on the other hand, turned out to be too runny. I don't know what it is with me and icing but this is starting to be a regular occurrence! I added more icing sugar to it to make it thicker but when I spread it over the cake it still dripped down the sides! That in itself wasn't so much a problem but it kept on dripping and started forming little pools on the cake board. I put the cake board onto a plate to catch the drips and then put it all in the fridge, hoping that it would help the icing to set. Luckily it did firm up and I was able to make it look a little more respectable!

Once the icing looked presentable I used the same caramel curls as the last time to place around the edge of the cake to create a border. I then used chocolate icing (in a squeezy tube from the supermarket) to write 'Happy birthday' - luckily the chocolate version of this icing is a lot easier to write with than the caramel one!

Coffee cake #2