Coffee and Walnut Cake

When I asked my boyfriend if he wanted me to make him a cake for his birthday, he said "Can you make me a coffee and walnut cake?" Now I love baking, and baking so that other people can enjoy it is even better. But I don't like walnuts... So making a coffee and walnut cake wasn't really my idea of a nice baking session. So I asked him if he really couldn't come up with something nice for both of us. But he seemed persistent.

Then I found out that our monthly potluck dinner with our neighbours was on the same day and we needed something to bring with us. What better then baking for even more people. So I decided that our addition to the potluck dinner would be the dessert, in the form of cake.

I made three different cakes in total and half of the cake went to work with my boyfriend to share with his colleagues. The other half was shared with my neighbours. When my boyfriend came back from work he said the cakes were an success. All of it got eaten in notime. And that evening when we had the potluck dinner our neighbours were also really enthousiastic. One of my neighbours even asked me to make her two cakes for her birthday the following day!
On thursday my parents were over for a coffee, they tried all three cakes and also loved them. With the coffee and walnut and chocolate fudge cake (will be in the next post) as their favorites.
The coffee and walnut cake kept on staring at me from the table, whispering me: "Im a pretty cake, you need to try me!" so in the end I had to try a piece. Eventhough I don't like walnuts this cake was actually really nice. So I will be eating this cake onwards now too. It doesnt have a very strong nut flavor.
The first recipe I will to share with you is the recipe of the Coffee and Walnut Cake. It is a recipe from my boyfriends mother, and not very hard to make.

Coffee and Walnut Cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:
225 gram (8 oz.) of butter
225 gram (8 oz.) of caster sugar
4 medium eggs
340 gram (12 oz.) of self-raising flour
55 gram (2 oz.) of walnuts
2 dessert spoons of instant coffee
1 dessert spoon of hot water
2 dessert spoons of cold milk
(For the coffee flavor you could also use 60 ml (2 fl oz.) of strong espresso coffee)

For the icing:
instant coffee powder
hot water
icing sugar

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 150C.

2. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until very light and pale.

3. Add the eggs one at a time to the butter and sugar mixture, beating well to completely incorporate each egg before adding the next egg.

4. Mix the coffee with the hot water and milk, and add espresso to the mixture and stir well.

5. Sift the flour onto the mixture, add the walnuts and stir well to completely combine.

6. Spoon the cake mixture into a lined and greased 20cm/8in cake tin.

7. Bake for 45-60 minutes. Check at 40 the give away is the smell.

When you start to smell it give it 10 mins then take a sneaky look. The centre of the top of the cake should be firm to the touch when cooked. If you take it out too soon the cake will fall. Don't be fooled by the colour it will look brown before its ready because of the coffee.

8. When the cake is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool. Make the icing and pour on cake. Wait till the cake and frosting are fully cooled and enjoy!