Coffee & Walnut Cake

When the snow came last weekend it seemed like a good excuse (not that I needed one) to do some home baking to take my mind off the growing pile of ironing and all the other mundane chores around the house. My poor fruit trees are still sitting in the porch as the soil is too frozen for planting them at the allotment so I just hope they survive. Anyway, here is a lovely cake recipe to break the diet (I wasn't on one so I was ok) which always gets eaten very quickly in our house (always a good sign). All the cake ingredients can be mixed at once so it is fairly quick and easy.

Ingredients

225g (8oz) margarine

225g (8oz) sugar

4 eggs (large)

225g (8oz) self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 tablespoons instant coffee, mixed with 1 tablespoon hot water

75g (3oz) walnuts, chopped

Butter Icing

75g (3oz) butter

250g (9oz) icing sugar, sifted

One & a half teaspoons instant coffee, dissolved in one - one & a half tablespoons hot water

10-12 walnut halves for decorating top of cake


1. Mix all cake ingredients together and divide between two greased and lined 8" (20cms) cake tins .

Mix by hand using a wooden spoon and bowl or in an electric mixer

Level mixture with the back of a metal spoon

2. Bake in middle of oven for 30-35 mins at 160oC/Fan 140oC/Gas3. Check cakes are cooked by inserting a metal skewer into the centre which should come out clean.


3. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 10 mins before turning out of tins onto a wire cooling rack (loosen cakes from sides of tins with a sharp knife). Carefully remove lining paper.

Leave to cool for 10 mins before turning out of tins

Leave to cool completely before sandwiching cake halves together

4. Make up butter icing by mixing all ingredients together. Use half of the butter icing to sandwich cakes together (you can add extra chopped walnuts to the butter icing if you want to). Use remaining icing to decorate top of cake. If icing isn't stiff enough add a little extra sifted icing sugar. Decorate top of cake with walnut halves. 

Sift the icing sugar to prevent lumps appearing in the finished butter icing

Coffee flavoured butter icing

Eat & Enjoy! (Go for a run later......)