This cake takes me back to our trip to Alibagh when a group of us went with our kids for a weekend during the monsoon seasons. It was probably July or August, wet months quite like now. Those days we could go from one place to another, Covid was an unfathomable concept not imagined in any future. I baked a Mocha cake and took along. By then a new age cafe called Mocha had opened and shut near home, a cafe which was a harbinger of eclectic understated un-bookish coffee eateries. I loved that pad. And I loved the name ‘Mocha’. Hence this cake.
The next part of this write up is an irresistible inclusion and a pure wiki-led input. Mocha besides being a coffee bean, is the name of the largest port in Yemen, the country that Chandler in Friends escaped from Janice to, where from African coffee is the most traded and transported.
My food word for this recipe would be reminiscent.
When you go out shopping look for;
Butter
Honey
Instant coffee powder
Sugar
Flour
Cocoa powder
Milk
Soda
Egg
The recipe would be;
In a saucepan please take eighty five grams butter, one tbsp clear honey, eighty grams sugar, two tbsp instant coffee powder, two hundred ml of water and mix well. Place it on heat, stirring constantly. Once the sugar dissolves, allow it to come to a boil, reduce heat and let it simmer for five mins. Keep it aside to cool till it reaches room temperature.
In a separate bowl sieve two hundred and twenty five grams flour with three tbsp cocoa powder. Add it to the cooled above mix, fold in smoothly.
In two tbsp milk, add one tsp soda bicarbonate and make a paste. Fold in gently to the batter.
Now finally, add one lightly beaten large egg and beat the mixture together until smooth.
Line the baking tin with butter paper and pour the batter into it.
Your oven should have been preheated to two hundred degrees Centigrade. Set the tin for baking and bake for twenty five minutes or until well risen and firm to the touch. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Dust with powdered sugar and cocoa powder.
