Chocolate Cake á la Irvine Welsh

That's something I never thought I would write! I did indeed make a chocolate cake in the style of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. How I hear you ask, what are you talking about Sharon?
Well, as you will know I work for a publisher and one of our books is a collection of literary pastiche, parodies if you will. The author has taken 17 authors, created recipes and written them in the style of the author. The book is called Kafka's Soup (you can guess what Kafka makes!) and the recipe I attempted was the Rich Chocolate Cake á la Irvine Welsh. I have to say it was a pretty surreal experience but it nonetheless produced a wonderfully rich and moist cake. This was a dry run because I will be making it for a talk by the author and thought I had better try it first.

Ingredients:
250g Butter
500g Caster Sugar
40g Cocoa Powder
150g Milk Chocolate
250mls Coffee
2 Eggs
275g Self-raising flour
375ml Port

Icing:
200g Dark chocolate
100g Caster sugar
100g Double cream
100mls Kahlua (optional, but why wouldn't you?!)

The recipe is written in the Scottish vernacular and reads like a drug cook-up as you can imagine so getting to the actual instructions takes a few readings! I did find myself reading it out loud in my best Scottish accent. It's pretty simple really, melt the butter and sugar and add the cocoa powder. Once they are all melted together add the milk chocolate and coffee and stir. Take it off the heat and add the eggs and flour. I added the flour all at once but it went lumpy and then floated to the top so I had to do a lot of stirring and breaking up. (I've just made the second one and I sieved the flour and added it a bit at a time and this worked a treat). Finally, add the half bottle of port, it does say it's a rich chocolate cake and it lives up to its name.
Once all the ingredients are in the batter is very liquid and I wondered how on earth this was going to work. But I divided it between the two prepared tins and popped them in the oven at 200 degrees, it said for 1 hour but it was ready in about 50. And it worked, it sort of set rather than baked. The consistency is not like a sponge or cake more like a tort or baked cheesecake.
Let the cakes cool while you make the icing. Add all the icing ingredients together and heat until all melted and thickened. Use some icing to sandwich the cakes together and then pour the rest over the top using palette knife to smooth it out. I brought this to a BBQ the next day and for some reason there was none left at the end of the day.
As I mentioned above I have now made it again for the author's talk and it went down a treat. The author was kind enough to say that the cake was up there with some of his efforts, as I say, too kind. But you can't go wrong with chocolate and booze!
Warning: This is a certifiacte 18 cake!