Mississippi Marriage Cake?!

So, I am charged with the wonderful (if not slightly daunting) task of creating Dan and Fran’s wedding cake. I think I’ve settled on the base but there are other layers to decide on. This Mississippi Mud Cake is very rich and dark and heavy  – now will it be too dense and sink into the base below? I hadn’t really considered this before but I imagine I’ll leave as late as possibly to assemble the cake. Mind you, traditional wedding cakes are pretty weighty with all that fruit.

This recipe is again from my little Australian Women’s Weekly chocolate cake book (full of gems) so the measurements are a bit odd – converted from cups. I didn’t have any coffee or chocolate liqueur so used Creme de Cassis instead an experiment. I think it works rather well and adds a bit of glamour which is always welcome at a wedding! I’ll save you a bit Dan.

Ingredients
250g butter, chopped
150g dark chocolate, broken into peices
440g caster sugar
250ml hot water
80ml coffee-flavoured liqueur
1 tablespoon coffee powder/instant
225g plain flour
35g self raising flour
25 cocoa powder
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, grease and line a deep 20cm cake tin.
Combine butter, sugar, chocolate, water, liqueur and coffee powder in a medium saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon until melted and combined. Pour into a large bowl and leave to cool for about 15 minutes.
Whisk in the sifted flours and cocoa until combined then add the egg. Pour into the tin and bake for about 1.5 hours. Half way through you can cover the cake with foil to avoid it over-browning (I should have done this).
Leave to cool in the tin for 30 minutes and then turn out onto a rack.