Rum & Raisin Cake with Coffee Buttercream - Bun Diaries #3

Ingredients:

1 cup raisins
3 tbls rum (which ever is your favourite)
1 (packed) cup dark brown sugar, plus 1 tbls extra
250g unsalted butter, softened
3 eggs
2 ½ cups self-raising flour
½ to 2/3 cup milk

Coffee Buttercream
3 heaped tsps instant coffee (I used decaf)
125g unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tsps milk

I decided to layer the cake with the coffee buttercream, so I actually used; 4 heaped tsp instant coffee, 250g butter, 1 2/3 cups icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract and still 2 tsps milk.

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C (350F/Gas mark 4). Lightly grease a 23cm round cake tin and line with baking paper.
Place raisins, rum and the 1 tablespoon of dark brown sugar in a saucepan over high heat. Bring to boil, reduce heat to a simmer, stirring continuously for 1 minute – you’re basically coating the raisins in a dark, rum sauce. Set aside to cool. If your raisin mix has clumped together and is quite solid by the time you’re ready to add it to the cake mix, then just quickly reheat it on the stove, enough for the raisins to break apart and be easily mixed.

In a dry mixing bowl, beat the butter and the cup of dark brown sugar using electric beaters until creamy. Add eggs and beat until smooth. Fold in flour and milk – in batches – then fold in rum and raisin mix until smooth. Mixture should be thick, but also soft enough that when you scoop it up onto your spatula and turn it onto it’s side the mixture slides off (not runny).

Spoon your delicious mixture into your prepared cake tin – try your best to resist shovelling the mixture into your mouth by mistake ;-) - and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes (turning around halfway through), or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Switch off the oven but leave the cake inside with the door open slightly to cool for ten minutes, then remove cake from tin and place onto a wire rack to cool completely. If you’re layering your cake like I did, now is a good time to cut the cake in half, resting the halves next to each other on the rack – watch out for those blistering hot raisins!

To make coffee buttercream, dissolve the coffee in 2 tablespoons of boiling water (3 tbls if you’re making extra for layers). Set aside to cool. Beat butter and icing sugar with electric beaters until creamy. Add the vanilla and milk, beat until smooth, then add coffee 1-2 tablespoons at a time until you reach the level of flavour that you want – I ended up using all of it for that (very slightly) bitter coffee taste.

When cake is completely cool, spread icing over cake however you’d like :-)

Enjoy!