Name: Mocha Drizzle Cake with Salted Milk Chocolate Ganache - 'Marry Me' Cake
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 55 min
Ingredients: 130g unsalted butter, at room temperature; 130g soft brown sugar; 2 eggs; 150g plain/all-purpose flour; 30g cocoa powder, sieved; 2 teaspoons espresso coffee powder, sieved; 1 teaspoon baking powder; ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda; ¼ teaspoon fine salt; 130g sour cream or natural/Greek yoghurt; 100ml espresso/strong coffee – use your favourite coffee. I make up espresso using 2 – 3 Nespresso capsules; 80g caster sugar; 75ml double/heavy cream; 150g milk chocolate, finely chopped or grated; flakey sea salt (optional); 50g – 75g white chocolate. I use buttons

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This amazing light, fluffy, moist and buttery mocha sponge is bursting with chocolate and coffee and drizzled with a sweet, coffee syrup. Topped with an unctuous, thick, creamy, dreamy milk chocolate ganache, spiked with sea salt, this sensational cake is a texture and flavour bombshell. Serve as dessert, eat it with a cup of tea, or why not gift it to a loved one?

What is your love language?

What is your love language? Mine is food, specifically cake. What better way to celebrate, console or simply make someone’s day, than gifting them a homemade cake? With Valentine’s and Galentine’s days soon upon us, share the love with this incredible Mocha Drizzle Cake with Salted Milk Chocolate Ganache.

I made a few of these cakes recently to make sure it was just perfect, before sharing the recipe. Charlotte took one to work, where it was so well received, that one of her colleagues announced that it should be called ‘Marry me!’ cake. I love this and this cake will forever have a new name in our house! Also, don’t forget, 2024 is a leap year – and we know what that means!!

Even if you do not have any specific plans for dreary February, I guarantee that this cake will bring chocolate deliciousness, it will brighten up your day and definitely bring a smile to your face.

How to make Mocha Drizzle Cake with Salted Milk Chocolate Ganache – ‘Marry Me’ Cake

Where is this recipe from?

This recipe is based on my Sour Cream Cake – Core Recipe. It is a fluffy, buttery sponge which lends itself to a range of different recipes. All mixed in one bowl in less than a minute, this recipe can be used for loaf cakes, slices, sandwich cakes and also streusel cakes, to name just a few. It has a generous quantity of sour cream (or natural yoghurt) in the cake batter which guarantees a moist and soft crumb in each and every bake. The changes I have made to the original cake include:

replacing the cornflour with cocoa powder, and altering the quantities slightly to ensure a rich chocolate flavoured sponge
adding some coffee powder to create a luscious mocha flavour
using soft brown rather than caster sugar, to add a moist and light caramel flavour to the crumb

Chocolate Ganache

The milk chocolate ganache is a Mary Berry recipe featured in her Chocolate Tray Bake with Feathered icing. To find the recipe, see here.

Collect all your ingredients together:

Cake –

unsalted butter, at room temperature
soft brown sugar
eggs
plain/all-purpose flour
cocoa powder, sieved
espresso coffee powder, sieved
baking powder
bicarbonate of soda
fine salt
sour cream or natural/Greek yoghurt

Drizzle –

espresso/strong coffee – use your favourite coffee. I use Nespresso capsules
caster sugar

Ganache –

double/heavy cream
milk chocolate, finely chopped or grated (I use Cadburys)
flakey sea salt (optional)

White Chocolate Hearts (optional) –

white chocolate. I use buttons

How to make this amazing cake:

Mocha sponge cake: it is important that the butter is at room temperature and soft enough to beat. If it is a little hard, beat it with a whisk before adding the other ingredients. If it is already quite soft, you do not need to do this. For more information on softening butter, see here.
Measure all the remaining ingredients into the mixing bowl with the butter. I place my mixing bowl on top my scales and weigh everything in directly. Make sure you sieve the cocoa and coffee powder. I often sieve the flour at the same time, but this is not as necessary as sieving the cocoa.
Use an electric whisk to beat until combined. This should take less than a minute. Be careful not to over-mix at this stage.
Tip into your lined baking tin and level the surface, ensuring the cake goes into all the corners.
Bake in the centre of a preheated oven for 50 – 60 minutes until cooked. It is cooked when:
- the centre feels springy when lightly touched with your finger and no imprint remains.
- a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Coffee syrup: while the cake is baking, make the soaking syrup. Pour the coffee into a saucepan with the sugar. Heat over a moderately low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Take off the heat.
Drizzle the hot cake with the syrup: as soon as the cake comes out of the oven, puncture it all over with a cake tester or skewer. Spoon the syrup over the cake, trying to let the middle absorb it as well as the sides.
Leave the cake to cool in the tin.
Milk chocolate ganache: finely chop or grate the chocolate. Alternatively, blitz it in a food processor. Heat the cream until it is steaming and small bubbles form on the surface. Do not let it boil.
Tip the chocolate into a heatproof bowl and pour over the hot cream. Stir to roughly mix and leave to sit for a couple of minutes to let the heat melt the remainder of the chocolate. Beat until smooth.
Remove the baking parchment from the cooled cake and place it on a wire rack or directly on a serving plate. The wire rack is just to help with easy clean up incase the ganache trickles off the cake. However the ganache is so thick, this rarely happens. When it does, I consider this the cook’s treat!
Pour the ganache over the cake, ensuring it completely covers the top. Let excess trickle down the sides.
Immediately sprinkle with flaky sea salt, if using
White chocolate hearts: if adding the hearts, make these whilst the cake cooks, so the chocolate has time to set. Chop, grate or blitz the white chocolate until fine and transfer into a microwave safe bowl. Lay out a sheet of baking parchment on a chopping board.
Blitz the white chocolate in 15 second increments, stirring after each blitz, until melted.
Spread the white chocolate in a thin layer, roughly 3mm thick, over the paper. It will harden quickly so immediately take some cutters to cut out some heart shapes. Leave the chocolate to become solid.
When you are ready to use the hearts, you may need to carefully re-cut them. Break off the excess chocolate and use the hearts to decorate the cake.

Made this recipe?

If you make this recipe, do please tag me on instagram @daffodil_kitchen. You could also leave a comment in the box directly below the recipe.