Coffee Sponge Custard Cream Cake

We celebrated Matthew's 19th and Anthony's 17th birthday last weekend and this was the birthday cake.  The recipe looks exhaustive but worth the effort.  Hope you enjoy and if you would like to make this and have any questions feel free to post a comment and I will try to help out.

INGREDIENTS

Cake
6 eggs (61g)
1 ½ cups white sugar
1 ½ cups plain flour, sifted

Custard

8 egg yolks
8 tab sugar
8 tab plain flour
1 teas vanilla essence
4 cups milk (full cream)
2 tab drinking chocolate

For Sponge Soaking

9 coffee cups Italian coffee
(made with 1 x 6 Italian Coffee Machine and 1 x 3 Italian Coffee Machine)
2 tab sugar
1 ½ capful Tia Maria Liquor

Decorations
200ml cream, whipped
As preferred using dark and white chocolate

METHODS

Cake – Day 1

Start the cake 3 days before require. Preheat oven at 180oC. Butter and flour a 22 cm springform cake tin and set aside. Separate egg yolks from white. Place egg whites in bowl of electric mixture and beat until soft peaks form. Add egg yolks all at once along with the sugar and beat again with electric mixer until incorporated. Stir flour in batches (3/4 cup at a time) with a wooden spoon stirring slowly but thoroughly in the same direction as beaten by mixer. Pour mixture into cake tin and slowly place in oven. Bake at 180oC for 53 mins. Turn oven off and leave in oven for 5 minutes before removing from oven. Allow to sit for a few minutes before inverting the cake onto a cake rack. Allow to cool completely and place in air tight container until the next day for filling.

Custard Filling - Day 1

Make custard:
In a saucepan over medium heat, heat up milk until hot. Switch off Heat.

In a medium bowl, mix together egg yolks, sugar, flour and vanilla essence. Stir to combine using a balloon whisk. Add ½ of the hot milk into egg mixture and stir slowly to incorporate. Add the rest of the milk and continue stirring. Return egg/milk mixture back to saucepan and stir with balloon whisk until custard thickens, this should take around 10 – 15 minutes. Remove from heat and pour custard into a clean glass bowl. Cover the surface of custard with cling film and allow to cool to lukewarm. Then place in the fridge until Day 2.


Assembling the Cake - Day 2

Divide the custard in half and add the drinking chocolate to one half, stir through to combine.  Set aside.

Make Italian coffee and pour into medium bowl. Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Allow to cool to room temperature and add the Tia Maria. Divide the coffee into 3 glasses to allow even soaking between layers. Set aside.

Cut the cake into 2 parts giving you 3 layers. Place bottom layer onto serving plate. Place a bottomless springform cake tin on top of cake and clip in place. This will allow the cake to set within the cake tin and will be removed after the cake has been set and just before decorating which is on day 3. Set aside the other 2 cake layers until required.

Using one glass of coffee and with a spoon pour coffee mixture evenly over bottom layer of cake. Spread the chocolate custard evenly over this 1st layer.

Place the 2nd layer of cake onto the chocolate custard and repeat the coffee soaking using the 2nd glass of coffee.   Spread the vanilla custard evenly over this 2nd layer.

Place the 3rd layer of cake over the vanilla custard and repeat the coffee soaking using the 3rd glass of coffee. 

Cover with “Gladwrap” and place in fridge overnight.

Decorating the Cake - Day 3

Unclip the springform pan and spread the sides and top with cream and decorate as desired or as below with chocolate shards.

Chocolate Shards
100g dark chocolate melted.  Take a teaspoon of melted chocolate and place the melted chocolate onto a large piece of baking paper.  With the back of a spoon, spread the chocolate flat across the paper to a height of approximately 12 cm, make about 16 - 18 of these shards.  Once set remove from the baking paper and place directly on the side of the cake.