02 November 2009
First Attempt At A Coffee Cake Recipe
We all like coffee cake, and Sadie in the office has been demanding one for ages (and without walnuts on the top), so we’ve decided to try various recipes to see if we can come up with our favourite recipe. After all the effort of making it, she said her Gran’s is much better, but then isn’t everyone’s Mum’s or Gran’s cakes better!
This one here is a simple, classic recipe that tastes delicious, but it has a weird twist – some strawberry jam; really it's a Victoria sandwich cake with some coffee flavours. I liked it with the jam as I personally find the thick wadges of coffee butter icing too rich and this added some variation, albeit a sweet one, but others thought it too much of a change to a classic taste that just shouldn’t have been tampered with.
By the way, it really is so totally, completely easy to make.
Ingredients - as always please use organic or Fairtrade where possible to save the world and help the poor
For the cake:
150g/ 5oz caster sugar
150g/ 5oz butter, softened
3 eggs, whisked lightly
150g/ 5oz self-raising flour, sieved
1½tsp baking powder, sieved
1tbsp instant coffee
1tbsp hot water
For the icing:
225g/ 8oz icing sugar, sieved
100g/ 4oz butter, softened
1½tsp instant coffee
1tbsp hot water
Strawberry jam (optional)
1. Pre-heat the oven to 160oC/325oF. Butter and line 2 small cake tins about 18cm/7 inch in diameter.
2. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Whisking all the time, now add alternately some of the whisked eggs followed by 1tbsp of the flour each time, making sure you do not use up all the flour.
4. Add the rest of the flour and the baking powder to the mixture and fold these gently into the mixture.
5. Dissolve the coffee in a mug and then add to the cake mixture and fold in gently.
6. Pour the mixture equally between the 2 prepared cake tins and bake for 30 minutes, or until ready. Remove the cakes from the tins and allow to cool on a wire rack.
7. To make the butter icing, cream together the butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Mix the coffee with the hot water and add to the butter icing.
8. To ice the cake, put one cake onto a flat surface and spread strawberry jam over the top. Now spread coffee butter icing on the bottom of the other cake and sandwich the 2 cakes together. Finally, spread coffee butter icing over the top of the cake.
9. You can decorate the cake with walnuts, almonds or how about chocolate coated coffee beans. Enjoy with a delicious mug of Fairtrade Ethiopian coffee from Grumy Mule, or whatever takes your fancy.
