In my family, May is a busy birthday month. This week alone there are two birthdays to cater for; for the first, I produced a rocky road and for the second I whipped up this delicious Baileys Irish Cream Cake.

I’m a bit experimental with my baking, I couldn’t find a recipe I liked, so based on my fool-proof sponge cake recipe I made up my own. It turned out exceptionally well and will now regularly feature in my repertoire of bakes.

SIMPLE Baileys Irish Cream Cake

Ingredients
225g soft butter or baking margarine like Stork
225g caster sugar
200g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 large eggs
6 tablespoons of Irish cream, I used Baileys

For the Irish cream buttercream
150g soft butter
300g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
20g cocoa powder
6 tablespoons of Irish cream, I used Baileys

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Butter and line the base of two deep 20cm sandwich cake tins.

Beat the butter (or margarine) and sugar together until pale and fluffy. I used an electric hand whisk, but you can use a wooden spoon if you prefer. Add the eggs, cocoa powder, vanilla and Irish cream and mix together. Gently tip in the flour and baking powder and combine until it’s all smooth.

Divide the mixture evenly between the two greased and lined baking tins. I usually weigh them to make sure they are more or less the same weight.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes until cooked through. I tend to open the oven door and leave my cakes in for five minutes so the shock of coming out of the oven is less. Maybe I just bake sensitive cakes.

Turn your cakes out onto a wire rack and leave to cool fully. If you’re in a rush, you can pop them in the fridge for half an hour or so.

To make the buttercream icing, sift the icing sugar and mix with your softened butter in a mixing bowl until smooth. Beat in the Irish cream and cocoa powder with the vanilla essence.

When they are cool, put a blob of the buttercream icing on your cake plate or stand; place the first layer of your sponge cake on top. The blob of buttercream will anchor the cake in place and stop it from sliding about. Smother the top of your first layer with about half of the buttercream, then sandwich the second layer on top of that. Swirl the rest of the buttercream on the top layer. I topped that with some grated chocolate, but you can leave it plain if you prefer.

I was very generous with the buttercream. If you think it’s far too much, then use what you want and put the rest in the fridge for topping cupcakes or whatever at a later date.

This Baileys Irish Cream cake is really light, but rich. It’s full of lovely Irish cream flavour and a great bake in general. It’s not too boozy, just enough to give a good flavour without making you fall over after eating a slice. The buttercream is excellent and would be great to top cupcakes with too. Happy baking!

If you enjoyed this, you might also like to try my really simple mocha cake recipe.