Coffee Walnut Cake

Coffee and walnuts is surely an amazing combination !! You don’t think so, then I think you guys should try out this recipe. It’s simply delicious 🙂 The cake tastes wonderful even without the frosting and it gets a notch better with a mild coffee flavoured frosting. I particularly loved

the bite and crunch of walnuts in every bite. Now, you might wonder, why such a cake at this time of the year. Well, it was hubby’s birthday yesterday and so we decided to bake this kutti cake and do the honours for him.

I had a coffee walnut cake and a honey almond cake in mind for him. But finally settled for the coffee walnut:) Yes, yes, I know he is not a cake lover, but what is a birthday without cutting a cake? But yeah, he didn’t cut it, I myself had to cut and serve it to them. I was planning for a semi naked cake, but ended up with lightly frosting the sides too. I am no good at frosting, so not at all proud of the looks of the cake, but I can assure you that it tastes fantastic.

Btw, did I tell you that its made from the cake flour that was gifted to me by wildpep.com

You can check out their website for details. They have unbleached, unbromated bread flour and wheat flour too.

I have used 240 ml cup.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• All purpose/cake flour 120 gm
• Cocoa powder 10 gm
• Salt a pinch
• Baking soda 1/4 tsp
• Baking powder 1/2 tsp
• Sugar 75 gm
• Walnuts 1/4 cup
• Curd 1/2 cup
• Oil 3 tbsp
• Coffee essence 1/2 tsp
• Instant coffee powder 1 tbsp
• Hot water 1/4 cup
• Milk 1-2 tbsp (if required)

For the frosting:

• Whipping cream 1/2 cup
• Coffee powder 1 tsp
• Icing sugar 1 tbsp (optional)
• Coffee essence 2 drops

For soaking the cake :

• Coffee powder 1 tsp
• Sugar 1-2 tbsp
• Water 2-3 tbsp

Method:

To bake the cake:

• Preheat the oven at 150-160 degree Celsius for ten minutes. Adjust the settings at fan mode and both the rods on position.
• Grease a 5 inch or 6 inch cake tin with butter and dust it with flour. Tap out the excess flour. I have used a 5 inch tin.

• Sieve the flour along with the cocoa powder, salt and baking powder for a couple of times. Please do not skip this step, as this will aerate your cake.

• Chop the walnuts into small pieces and add it to the flour mixture.

• Add the baking soda into the curd and mix well. Keep it aside for 2-3 minutes.

• Powder the sugar in a dry mixer jar. Mix the oil and powdered sugar.
• Now, mix the coffee powder to the hot boiling water and cool it for 2-3 minutes
• Furthermore, add the coffee decoction to the sugar mixture and combine well. Pour this into the bubbled curd-soda mixture.

• Add the coffee extract and whisk well.

• Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry flour mixture and fold gently. Do not over mix.

• If the batter appears too dry, add little milk and combine. I didn’t have to add the milk.

• Transfer the batter into the prepare tin and tap gently to remove air bubbles.

• Bake the cake in the lower rack for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

• Remove the tin from the oven and cool it on a wire rack.

• After cooling the cake in the tin for around 5-8 minutes, invert the cake gently onto the cooling rack and cool completely.

To prepare the frosting :

• Transfer the whipping cream from the freezer into the refrigerator compartment for few hours.
• Take half cup of the cream into a chilled bowl and beat it at low speed for 1-2 minutes. It’s a good idea to chill the blades too. Do this only when you are about to frost the cake.
• Add coffee powder and icing sugar and whip till you get stiff peaks. This will take around 4-6 minutes.

To make the soaking syrup:

• Boil the water, sugar and coffee powder till the sugar dissolves. Cool it till it’s ready to be used.

Final assembly of the cake:

• After the cake is cooled sufficiently, slice the cake horizontally into two or three parts.

• Soak the cake slices liberally with the syrup.

• Apply a light coating of the whipped cream on the bottom layer and place the other layer on top.

• Pipe out the cream using your desired nozzle.
• Decorate the top with toasted walnuts.

• Chill for half an hour and serve it with love 🙂

Notes:

• To make cake flour, replace one tablespoon of your all purpose with cornflour.
• You may use vanilla extract if you don’t have coffee essence or extract.
• Use fresh batch of good quality coffee powder for a better flavour.