Thursday 19 November 2009


Right, exams are over and done with so now I can focus most of my attention here, while still keeping an eye on my lecture notes. I have decided, after realizing the wonders of this cake, to talk about the amazing Coffee and Walnut cake I made over the weekend in between revising for my exam and reading up on lecture notes (there is nothing like icing a cake with rich, airy buttercream and then topping it off with roughly chopped walnuts to soothe away any worries and stresses).

My break (of baking) began with the idea of making a banana cake, a tried and tested, amazingly yummy recipe which usually gets great reviews.I must say that it is an amazing recipe, given to my mum and I by a friend of ours who loves baking and cooking as much as we do. But I had half heartedly set out to bake it as I really wanted to try something new and different, not mentioning that it was getting pretty late and the cake needed and hour and a half in the oven. It wasn't until my flatmate walked in and whispered 'make coffee and walnut cake'. I then remebered that that was her favourite. Seeing as I had never made or even tried a Coffee and Walnut cake before I thought it would be fun to try out a new recipe and it would be a nice treat for my flatmate to wake up to her favourite cake sitting on the counter in all its glory.

So as I had never baked this cake before so naturally I didnt have a recipe for it either. After browsing the internet for one, as you do now a days, I came across a Nigel Slater recipe. I must say that I love Nigel Slater, so I began reading the ingredients list and realised that it was pretty much just your usual sponge cake recipe with a bit of instant coffee and walnuts mixed in. So sticking to what I know best, and I know that Nigel Slater is amazing I gave his recipe a try.

I have to say that this cake was absolutly AMAZING, well if no one else liked it,which Im sure they all did as it all went within a day, I can safely say that Mr Slater has turned me into a Coffee and Walnut cake worshipper (or atleast a worshipper of his recipe).

Walnut and Coffee Cake
175g unsalted, softened butter
175g sugar(I used a mixture of light muscavado and normal sugar)
3 large eggs
175g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
70g chopped walnuts
2 tsp instant coffee granules + 2tbs boiling water
A few extra whole of chopped walnuts, whatever takes your fancy, for decoration
For the buttercream:
200g softened butter
400g icing sugar
(I used 150g of butter and 350g icing sugar and found it made more than enough buttercream, but if you are a fan of the good old icing go for the larger quantity)

1)Cream the butter and sugar together till pale and fluffy.
2) Beat in the eggs one at a time, or else the mixture may curdle (mine almost did, not that it really affects the end result, but if you see it going a bit lumpy just beat in a tablespoon of flour from your 175g of s. raising before adding the next egg)
3)Sift together the flour and b. powder and gently fold in to the butter/egg mixture till the mixture is one thick, glossy mixture.
4)Dissolve the coffee in the hot water, leave to stand for a minute or so just so that you're not pouring boiling water into the butter, then fold in to the mixture along with the chopped walnuts.
5) Nigel next said to split the mixture between 2 greased and lined 20 cm cake tins, but I just used a 22 cm cake tine and it turned out fine, just needed a bit longer in the over.

Bake the cake at 180C, 160F, gas mark 4, for about 25 - 45mins, depending on the size of your cake tin/s. The cake will be ready when an inserted cocktail stick comes out completely clean, i.e with no pieces of batter stuck to it.
6)Once your cake is ready take it out of the oven and leave to cool, when I say this I mean wait till it is absolutely, completely cold. If you try putting icing on a warm cake it will just melt and run off!
7)In the meantime you can make the icing. Simply beat the butter till its smooth and then slowly sift in the icing sugar (I wouldn't normally sift the icing sugar, just out of laziness, but I do think you get a better result this way). Once this has all become one lovely, thick paste, dissolve the coffee in the boiling water, leave to stand as before and then mix into the buttercream mixture. I didn't think the mixture would take all the coffee but it did, don't be tempted to skip on the coffee because it really does add the most glorious, almost caramelly flavour to the frosting.
8) Finally, once the cake has cooled (if you used 2 cake tins skip this next step) take a serated bread knife and slice the cake in half. Now this is not a hard procedure, dont think that you have to cut the cake perfectly into 2 identical halves, it really doesn't matter. You then want to spread about 1/3 of the buttercream over one of the cake halves. Then top this with the second (half of) cake and generously pile the remaining buttercream over the top, slowly pushing it out to the edges. If you want you can even take the buttercream round the sides, to make it look like one of those big, thick cakes you see in films in New York cafes.
All that remains is the decoration. All you need to do is sprinkle or place (depending on how wild you're feeling)the walnuts over the top of the cake, et voila! the cake is made.

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