Coffee and Walnut Cake.

It really has become very autumnal over the last few days. There's a chill in the air and the nights are drawing in. I settled into my cosy bed last night with a big wedge of this scrumptious coffee cake and my Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets book and could not have been happier on a Sunday night. Now I love autumn. I love wrapping up warm in big chunky scarves and toasty oversized beanies and coats. I love stomping my boots through crunchy leaves of burnt orange, forest green, copper and bronze. I love woodland walks with the wind nipping at my rosy cheeks and twigs snapping under my feet. I love clasping my hands around a mug of hot chocolate towered high with a mountain of cream. Autumn and Winter are definitely my most favourite times of the year and also the times which really offer the best of the best grub I do believe- with big hearty, warming meals and indulgent cakes and desserts to tuck into and as such, I felt like a nice, BIG slice of this coffee and walnut cake was definitely an essential for a lazy September Sunday.   

A moist, mellow flavoured, mouthwatering crumbly coffee sponge dotted with walnut pieces, sandwiched together with lashings of sweet, fluffy coffee buttercream and finished off with crunchy praline walnut halves and mocha bean and walnut white chocolate shards. Simply delicious.

Recipe

Makes 1 humongous and tantalising 3 tier naked layer cake, could anything be better than that?

For the cake:

265g unsalted butter
265g light brown sugar
4 large eggs, beaten
4 1/2 tbsp. strong black coffee 
265g self-raising flour
2 tsp. baking powder
175g walnut pieces

For the coffee icing: (For the most marvelous and moreish icing that you just cannot stop dipping your finger in/ eating whole overflowing spoonfuls of/ restrain yourself from licking the whole entire bowl spotlessly clean of:)

230g softened unsalted butter
400g icing sugar
2 tbsp. strong black coffee
1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the white chocolate, mocha bean and walnut shards:
100-200g melted white chocolate
Mocha beans and walnut pieces and halves to scatter onto the melted chocolate

For the walnut praline:
100g caster sugar
8 walnut halves

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/ fan 160°C and grease and line the bottom of 3x 20cm loose-bottom cake tins.

2. Cream together the butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Beat in the coffee.

3. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and fold in until fully combined. Fold in the walnut pieces.

4. Pour equal amounts into the prepared cake tins and bake for 20-25 minutes minutes until bronze, risen and the surface springs back when pressed lightly with a finger. Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool for 10-20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

5. Prepare the chocolate shards. Melt the white chocolate in a pyrex dish over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, pour onto a parchment/ grease proof paper lined baking tray. Spread the white chocolate using a knife, spoon or palette knife to form a smooth slab of chocolate. Scatter with mocha beans and walnut pieces or halves. Allow to firm up, refrigerating if needed to ensure that the chocolate is solid. Once hardened but still slightly soft, the chocolate can be cut into triangles or shards. Alternatively, wait until completely solid and the chocolate slab can be snapped into shards.

6. Prepare the praline walnut halves. In a saucepan over a low-medium heat, warm the caster sugar until the sugar melts and dissolves to form a glossy, deep bronze caramel. Stir through the walnut halves and use a spoon to transfer the hot toffee coated walnuts onto a parchment/ grease proof paper lined tray or baking sheet. Allow to go solid. Note. work quickly when dunking the walnuts as the toffee praline hardens almost instantly as the toffee cools.  

7. Prepare the icing. Add the softened butter to a bowl and sieve in the icing sugar. Add the vanilla extract and coffee. Beat together until thick, pale, smooth and creamy. Sandwich each layer of sponge together with icing, covering the cake entirely and scraping the sides with a clean palette knife to remove excess and create a naked layer look. Top with the white chocolate shards and create a border of alternating mocha beans and praline walnut halves.

Alternatively. for a more rustic, simple look just create a border of plain walnut halves and mocha beans around the cake edge. Simply wonderful. 

8. Grab a slice!... or maybe just gobble up the whole thing! Can anyone really ever have too much coffee cake?

Thank you for reading!

Garden Cake.

As the warm summer days draw to a close and more thankfully our bodies are no longer called upon to be bikini ready - let’s drown our sorrows for the soon to be forgotten sunshine filled days with a good old slab of cake, and just in time to tuck into with tonight’s second helping of bake-off as well. Slightly delayed is this post for Garden cake as last week was cake week in the tent whereas this week is all about biscuits however, it is always a good time to indulge in cake and this is a very good cake to indulge in indeed. Largely taken from Justin Gellatly’s Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding cookbook; just scaled up and paired with my favourite orange cream cheese frosting; this cake is scrumptious. Sweet; lightly spiced; nutty and mind-blowingly moist. I love a good carrot cake, in fact it is my favourite of all cakes and this is up there with the best I’ve tried. Walnuts and courgettes are a very wonderful and welcome addition too but, do perhaps warn any eager eaters who aren’t avid bakers that the green flecks in the sponge are in fact courgette and most definitely are supposed to be there and no your wonderful cake is not speckled with mould. How very dare you!?

Decorate with edible flowers from; rose petals to violas; and fuchsia to lavender and you have yourself an utterly delicious cake ready to devour as you bid a fond farewell to the sun-kissed days August brought us.

Recipe

Makes 1 ginormous and delicious 3-4 tier naked layer cake, aren't you lucky?

For the cake:

190g carrots, peeled and grated

190g cougette, grated

210g walnuts, finely chopped

zest of 1 1/2 oranges

6 eggs

330g caster sugar

330g light brown sugar  (yep, that's one hefty amount of sugar to coat my teeth but also one delightful dollop of sweetness to fill my belly. I know which one wins for me!)

450ml vegetable oil

450g plain flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. bicarbonate of soda

3/4 tsp. grated nutmeg

3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp. ground ginger

a pinch of salt

For the cream cheese icing: (For the most tantalising, terrific icing you have ever tasted in your life, please see below:)

100g softened unsalted butter

250g full fat cream cheese 

zest of 1 orange

600g icing sugar

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/ fan 160°C and grease and line the bottom of 4x 20cm loose-bottom cake tins.

2. Add the grated carrot and courgette to a large mixing bowl with the chopped walnuts and orange zest and mix well. 

3. Add the eggs, sugars and oil and beat well for a couple of minutes with an electric whisk. 

4. Sieve in the flour, spices, baking powder and bicarb and fold in until fully combined. 

5. Pour equal amounts into the prepared cake tins and bake for 30-35 minutes until bronze, risen and the surface springs back when pressed gently with a finger. Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool for 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

6. Prepare the icing. Add the softened butter, cream cheese and orange zest to a bowl and sieve in the icing sugar. Beat together until thick, stiff, pale, smooth and fluffy. 

7. Sandwich each layer together with icing, covering the cake entirely and scraping the sides with a clean spatula to remove excess and create a naked layer look. Scatter with edible flowers and mint leaves. 

Note. I produced 4 layers of carrot, courgette and walnut cake however, only used three layers to make my cake as I felt it was tall enough. If you feel the same, why not make cake pops with the remaining sponge? Just crumble your cake to fine crumbs and stir in some remaining cream cheese icing before moulding into small balls. Place on a baking paper/parchment lined tray and cool in the freezer until fairly solid. Melt white chocolate and coat the cake balls before returning to the freezer to dry the chocolate. To decorate why not stick on a crystallized flower or two before the chocolate dries?  

8. Tuck in!

Thank you for reading!