Chocolate and Coffee Loaf

This month's theme for Choclette and Chele's We Should Cocoa challenge is coffee and it's being hosted by Lucy from The Kitchen Maid. I like coffee and of course like many people I love chocolate so for me this is a perfect combination. I don't drink a huge amount of coffee but I do need my morning fix when I get to my office. I have a small purple cafetiere on my desk at uni with a pack of coffee next to it because if I'm going to drink coffee I like to have the good stuff. However I rarely drink coffee at home anymore. I have an espresso pot that I bought about 8 years ago when I developed a love for proper coffee after working as a barista/waitress during my gap year and I used to make coffee in it on a 
daily basis. Nowadays I don't tend to fancy coffee as often. I brewed up a pot for this cake but as the recipe only required a tablespoon of strong coffee and I was baking at around 10pm I put the rest of the coffee in a mug in the fridge and had iced coffee the next day, otherwise I would have been awake all night.

My espresso pot

The recipe for this cake is from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days book. It's only the second cake that I've made from this book, and I was a bit apprehensive about it being too sweet. I made the maple and pecan cake from the book a few months ago and although the cake was delicious it was incredibly sweet. Fortunately this cake is not too sweet. It has a very high cocoa content with 60g cocoa which makes this a cake for dark chocolate lovers, and I am one of those people. Sadly for my boyfriend he doesn't like dark chocolate or coffee so this is a cake for me. As I made another chocolate cake this week this one has gone in the freezer for now so it will be ready for me when I need a dark chocolate cake fix. I've had one slice so far and the cake was very light in texture but the coffee flavour wasn't that strong. Next time I make this cake I'll take it into the office to share out, but as I enjoyed the first slice so much I'm going to be a little selfish and keep it all for myself. I know that makes me sound like a greedy cake fiend but I lost half a stone after moving house at the beginning of the month and haven't managed to put any of it back on again yet. So in my mind that is the perfect excuse to eat lots of cake and chocolate!