I adore this recipe as it makes the whole house smell of Baileys 🙄. The cake itself isn’t too rich and sweet, with the subtle coffee aroma punctuating the smooth irish creme liqueur. The swiss meringue has a buttery, full bodied sweetness which goes very well with the cake.

In making a tall three-tiered cake, I opted to make 6″ sized layers (my prefered size for non-wedding cakes). I transported it on an 8″ cake disc placed in two cake boxes – upturning one of them as the lid of the other. (Miss 9’s casual comment was the solution to my problem!)

Please do serve them in smaller portions – you can always go back for seconds. Cut rectangular 1.5cm thick slices and drop it onto a cutting board. Further cut into fingers of 1.5cm width. Baileys cake with a hint of coffee, tastes exceptional with tea.

Ingredients for 3 x 6″ layers, for a three-tiered Cake:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I use Valrhona or Equagold)
• 1 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 3 Tbsp instant coffee granules (Moccona)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup oil (rice bran)
• 1 cup Baileys Coffee Irish Cream liqueur
• 1/2 cup Baileys, extra for imbibing
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla paste (Equagold)

Ingredients for the ganache filling:

• 120g chocolate drops (I used Equagold 70% Ghana dark chocolate)
• 150ml cream
• 1/4 cup dark chocolate pieces, for sprinkling over the icing (I used Solomon’s gold Smooth Dark kibble)

Directions:

• 1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C. Prepare three 6″ cake pans by oiling and lining with baking paper.
  2. In the bowl of your electric mixer, combine the dry ingredients. Turn the mixer on low to break up any lumps and then slowly add in the wet ingredients. Mix until smooth, about 2 minutes.
  3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  4. Prepare the Dark Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream Icing while the cake is cooking.
  5. Allow the cake to rest and cool for at least 10 minutes before flipping onto a wire cooling rack and cool to room temperature.
  6. While the cake is cooling, warm the cream till it barely comes to a boil on the stove. Remove from heat and pour over the bowl of chocolate. Let it sit in the cream for 5 minutes then stir to combine. Once combined, leave it to cool for 30 minutes before drizzling.
  7. Place the bottom layer of cake on a cake decorating turntable.
  8. Imbibe the top of the bottom cake layer with Baileys and then spread on ganache icing.
  9. Layer on the second cake and repeat with Baileys and ganache.
  10. Place the top layer on and ice the cake with swiss meringue buttercream. You can achieve the ‘naked cake effect’ by putting just enough icing to cover, without covering every little bit of cake.
  11. Holding a metal ruler or rectangular scraper at 45 degrees to the cake, turn the turntable so that your icing spreads cleanly around the cake.
  12. Pipe blobs of icing using a large round (wilton 1M) or jagged tip on top.
  13. Decorate with freeze dried berries, chocolate pieces etc.
  14. Refrigerate so that the icing hardens – the cake tastes absolutely better the next day.