Ingredients:
Plain flour – 2 cups
Baking powder – 1.5 tsp
Baking soda – 1 tsp
Thinly sliced almonds, chopped cashwes, pistachios and raisins – 1/2 cup
Brown sugar – 1 cup
Water – 1 cup
Butter (salted/unsalted) – 1/3 cup (at room temperature)
Salt – 1/4 tsp if using salted butter; else 1/2 tsp
Almond essence- 1 tsp
Milk – 1 tbsp
Sprite or coke – 1 tbsp
Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.
2. Grease the baking pan with butter or oil or use a non-stick cooking spray. I used a 8″ square pan.
3. Dry mixture: Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add the broken nuts and mix.
4. Wet mixture: Mix butter, sugar and salt. Add hot water to the mixture. Transfer the mixture to a pan and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes.Switch off the gas and allow the mixture to cool.
5. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture while beating well in one direction. Add essence. Keep beating until the entire dry mixture is fully incorporated. If the mixture seems too dry, add the milk.
6. Now add the coke or sprite and beat for a minute.
7. Pour the mixture into the greased pan. You do not have to spread the mixture using a spoon, if the mixture is of the right consistency. Tap the cake tin to release any trapped air bubbles.
8. Place in the centre of the pre-heated oven and bake for 45 minutes. The temperature and baking time can vary from oven to oven. Hence, test the cake at around 35 minutes to see if it is done. To test, insert a toothpick inside the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean, the cake is ready.
9. Remove the pan and let the cake cool for 10 minutes. Invert it.
10. Cool the cake well before doing any icing.
Decoration:
Basic buttercream icing:
Ingredients:
Butter (preferably unsalted) – 250 g
Icing sugar – 500 g
Vannila essence (optional) – 1 tsp
Hot water – 1 tbsp
Mix all the above ingredients together. The basic white icing is ready! By using different edible colors, colored icing can be prepared. For chocolate icing, mix 1 or 2 tsp of cocoa powder with a little hot water to make a paste and mix this into the basic icing. For my cake, I used chocolate, pink and white icing. Use a cake decorator fitted with different nozzles and get creative! Sprinkled chopped pecans over the icing. The icing tasted like Ferrero Rocher! 
