Thursday 23 September 2010

Coffee and Walnut Cake

It's been a while since I've baked anything as I've been really busy lately. I decided on this delightful coffee and walnut cake from the primrose bakery book.  I don't like to drink coffee but I like coffee flavoured cakes, ice-cream or chocolate. The cake turned out very light and spongy with a delicious aroma of coffee. In fact my cake was a little too soft and it fell apart a little. Good thing I could cover it up with the icing! It still tasted very good and I would definitely make this again. 

adding coffee and walnuts 

ready to go in the oven

straight from the oven 

adding coffee syrup 

cover with coffee buttercream icing 


decorate with walnuts, I added crushed walnuts as well. 



Recipe from 'cupcakes from the primrose bakery'
For the cake
175g unsalted butter
175g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs, free-range or organic
175g self-raising flour, sifted
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
75g walnuts
1.5 teaspoons instant coffee mixed with 2 tablespoons boiling water

For the syrup
1 tablespoon instant coffee
50g demerara sugar
55ml boiling water

For the coffee buttercream icing (you need 1.5 batches) 
150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tablespoon semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder, dissolved in a small amount of hot water
350g icing sugar, sifted

  • Preheat the oven to 170 C.
  • Grease and line two 20cm cake tins.
  • In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is pale and smooth, which should take 3-5 minutes using an electric hand mixer. 
  • Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition. 
  • Add the flour and baking powder and beat well. 
  • Grind the walnuts in a food processor for about 30 seconds or so - they should not be too fine. 
  • Add the coffee and ground walnuts to the batter and mix again but for no more than 3-4 seconds. 
  • The mixture should have a marbled effect and it is very important not to overmix or you will take all the air out of the cakes. 
  • Divide the mixture evenly between the tins and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes until raised and golden brown.
  • Insert a skewer in the centre of one of the cakes - it should come out clean if it is cooked. 
  • Remove from the oven and let the cakes cool in their tins. 
  • Make up the syrup by combining the ingredients in a jug and stirring well to ensure the sugar dissolves completely. 
  • After 10-15 minutes, prick the sponges with a fork, brush on the syrup and leave it to soak in. 
  • When you are ready to ice the cakes, carefully turn them out of their tins and peel the greaseproof paper from the bases. 
  • Place one cake on a plate and spread a thin layer of coffee buttercream over it. 
  • Place the second cake on top and use the rest of the buttercream to cover the upper surface. 
  • Decorate with walnut halves around the edge. 

10 comments:

  1. This looks so wonderful! I would love to have this with a cup of coffee!
    Mmmm, so good~

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a cake! It looks so tempting!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Its so pretty!! And it sounds delicious! I wish I had a piece now to eat with my coffee :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. A light and spongy cake sounds great right now!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm a new fan of walnuts and a longtime fan of coffee, so this sounds like a match made in heaven!

    ReplyDelete
  6. wow - that's a tall sponge! Looks great

    ReplyDelete
  7. How pretty! My husband would just love this cake :D
    *kisses* HH

    ReplyDelete
  8. Looks gorgeous! Can I send you some info about Cupcake Camp London www.cupcakecamplondon.co.uk ? We'd love you to donate some of your gorgeous cakes! You can email me at cupcakecamplondon@gmail.com or if you give me your email address, I can send you the details :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. June who loves to bake1 October 2010 at 23:14

    If this cake tastse anything close to how delicious it looks, oh...my...heavenly...days. I'm with you, Andrea - I wish I had a piece (a BIG piece) of this beauty of a cake...as in, right now.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very good topic, similar texts are I do not know if they are as good as your work out. whole herbs premium maeng da kratom powder what does it do

    ReplyDelete

I've had to turn word verification back on as I've had a lot of problem with spam lately, Apologies! Please, please do leave a comment - I appreciate every one of them and will reply to all of them. Thanks!