Preheat your oven to 160ºc/140ºfan and grease & line two 8″/20cm Cake tins – leave to the side.
In a small bowl, add the dark chocolate and unsalted butter and melt together until smooth. I do this in the microwave.
Add the coffee granules and malt powder into a mug, and add 125ml boiling water and mix – then, add this to the chocolate/butter mix and stir well until smooth.
In a separate large bowl add the plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar, and light brown soft sugar and mix well so the ingredients are all mixed with each other well!
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and buttermilk together until combined.
Add the chocolate mixture and the egg mixture to the dry bowl, and stir with a spatula/whisk until smooth. You do not need an electric mixer for this.
Pour the mixture into the two tins and bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes. A skewer should come out clean, and the cake should be silent (if not fully baked, it’ll make a bubbly/crackling noise).
Leave to cool fully in the tins.
For the Buttercream!
In a large bowl, beat the room temperature unsalted butter on its own for a few minutes to loosen.
Add the icing sugar and beat until smooth
Add the malt powder, and beat again. If the buttercream is really thick, add 1tbsp of boiling water at a time to loosen ever so slightly.
For the Decoration!
Spread the chocolate spread onto the bottom cake, and pipe on half of the buttercream.
Add on the second sponge and pipe on the rest of the buttercream, and then decorate with some Maltesers and whatever else you fancy!
Notes
I used the Horlicks powder for my Malt Powder that mixes with Milk, but you can also use ovaltine, or any other malt powder.
If you can’t access the Buttermilk, you can make your own! Use the same quantity of full-fat milk, with 2tbsp lemon juice whisked in.
This cake will last for 3 days in an airtight container!