Let’s get back into the kitchen and cook up an old school classic that never really went out of fashion. There’s something about the flavour combination of coffee and walnut that makes this cake a firm favourite with everybody whenever we put it on the menu… sold out in minutes usually. In this recipe, we’ll take you step-by-step through making the cake and the delicious coffee flavoured cream cheese frosting. We make ours in a simple rustic style but feel free to pimp yours up with a fancy icing style and some extravagant decoration.
Incredibly easy to make at home, and absolutely delicious. Jump in, get cooking and bake yourself back in time. Your friends and family will be delighted that you did!
Ingredients
For the cake
175g Self-raising flour
12g Freshly ground coffee
1 tsp Instant coffee
3 Medium free-range eggs
50g Walnuts (Ground)
150g Caster sugar
2g Sea salt
150g Unsalted butter - cubed
For the cream cheese frosting
200g Full-fat cream cheese (Philadelphia)
400g Icing sugar
1 Tbsp Instant coffee
50g Unsalted butter - melted and cooled
A good squeeze of vanilla paste
Some halved walnuts to decorate
Bake in a 21cm springform tin
Some more recipes for you to enjoy
Method
- Prepare the cake tin by greasing the sides and base with a little butter. Cut out a circle of baking parchment for the base and fix in place. Preheat the oven to 200℃.
- Put the butter, caster sugar and ground coffee in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix with the k-beater until light, fluffy and pale.
- Add a little hot water to the instant coffee in a small bowl and mix to a paste. Add this paste and the ground walnuts to the bowl and mix on a slower speed until they are combined.
- Place the eggs in a jug and whisk to combine. Add a little of the egg mixture to the bowl and beat on a slow speed. Add a couple of spoons of flour and then some more egg. Keep alternating until all of the flour and egg is incorporated.
- Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and use a spatula scrape down the sides and ensure the mixture is combined. Scrape the mixture into the prepared cake tin and roughly level with a small pallet knife or spoon.
- Place the cake tin in the middle of the preheated oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 180℃. Bake for 30-minutes. The cake should be risen and golden brown.
- Remove the cake tin from the oven and allow the cake to cool, still in its tin, for at least 30-minutes before turning out and removing the baking parchment from the base.
- Place the cake on its final plate for decorating and set to one side.
- Next, make the cream cheese frosting.
- Melt all of the butter in a small saucepan and set aside to cool.
- Place all of the icing sugar and the cream cheese in a bowl and combine with an electric whisk. Start slowly to avoid filling your kitchen with a cloud of icing sugar!
- Add some hot water to the instant coffee to make a paste. Once the frosting is all combined add in a good squeeze of vanilla paste and all of the coffee paste and whisk to combine. Finally, with the electric whisk still running on a slow speed, slowly dribble in the melted butter. Once incorporated, turn the whisk up to a high-speed for a final blitz.
- If your icing is a little too soft, place it in the fridge to firm up a little before using.
- Pour the icing over the cooled cake and roughly spread using a spatula or pallet knife. We like ours rustic with the icing just tumbling down the sides of the cake.
- Decorate the top of the cake with a ring of walnut halves and place the completed cake in the fridge until serving.
- Cut yourself a decent wedge and serve with a cup of tea. You and your guests will be transported back to the 1980s in style!
Watch us make this on YouTube
Recipe
Download the recipe as a PDF.
You must log in to post a comment.