Coffee and Walnut Cake

There are times when only a good old fashioned cake will do. The slightly bockety homemade cakes of my youth.

I always loved coffee cake and like my coffee, I like it strong and dark. It should taste of coffee. When we were young at home this was always achieved using Irel. Later we used a few teaspoons of instant coffee in a small amount of boiling water, cooled down. Now I use Trablit (liquid coffee extract).

Next walnuts. You can't be mean with them. This cake has a generous layer in the middle, on top of the filling. I toasted them for a few minutes on a dry pan.

Other than that it's a normal cake mixture - 8 8 4 of old.

Recipe
225g softened butter
225g sugar
4 eggs
225g plain flour sieved
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon coffee extract (reduce quantity if you prefer it less strong)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg (I60 deg fan). Line two 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchement or butter paper.

Cream the butter and sugar, add in one egg at a time. Add a tablespoon of flour after each egg to prevent curdling. Sieve in the flour and baking powder. Add the coffee extract.

Divide between the tins and bake for about 25 minutes or until springs back to a touch and has shrunk from the sides.

Leave in the tins for about 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove and peel off the butter paper or parchement.

Cool.

To make the buttercream

300g icing sugar
100g soft butter
1 dessertspoon coffee extract
milk to adjust consistency

Whisk the butter and coffee extract into the icing sugar. Add milk if necessary.

Sandwich the layers together with half the buttercream. Sprinkle filling with toasted walnuts. Finish off top with remainder of buttercream and some whole walnuts.

Enjoy.