20 November 2011

Happy Birthday to me!!

Its a sad day when the desire for a non-bloated tummy and the subsequent hangover stop you making and eating your own birthday cake until two days after your birthday, but needs must and so I have stuffed my face tonight quite happily with my favourite cake; coffee and walnut.

coffee and walnut cake

Beautiful!  The butter in the icing makes it so shiny and velvety looking, wonderful.


coffee and walnut cake

Its a 7" cake which is now my new favourite sized cake (is it weird to have a favourite sized cake?) so its nice and tall but chunky and the slices come out short but thick, so many short descriptive words.  Also the icing isn't coffee buttercream, its made with cream and melted, sort of burnt butter, and I like it (I like everything it appears).  I made it before a while ago and ate the whole thing with a fork, like a real lady.

coffee and walnut cake slices

Coffee and Walnut Cake (from the Great British Book of Baking)
175g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
75g walnut pieces, chopped
175g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water or 1tbsp coffee essence

1) Heat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line two 7" cake tins; you can use 8" tins for a larger cake but I think they're cute in the smaller tins.
2) Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3) Beat in the eggs one at a time
4) Sieve in the dried ingredients and fold in with a metal spoon; fold in the coffee essence and nuts.
5) Bake for 25 minutes until the sponges spring back when you poke them.

Icing
125g unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
3 tbsps instant coffee granules dissolved in 2 tbsps boiling water or 2 tbsps coffee extract
4 tbsps double/whipping cream
25g walnut pieces + extra if you want to decorate with them

1) Melt the butter until it goes frothy; heating it for slightly longer until it goes a pale brown colour gives it the stronger nutty taste I go on about liking.
2) Sieve the icing sugar into a heatproof bowl and add the melted butter, coffee and cream and mix together until smooth; stir through the chopped walnut pieces.
- The icing will need to cool before it can be used.

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