Coffee, Chocolate and Walnut Cake (GF)

For s

ome reason I’ve been craving a coffee cake for months now but I’ve held-off making one as I didn’t think anyone else in my family would eat it. Then came a weekend of rain, football and one boy isolating and I thought now was the time.

It also just so happened that I bought some Camp Coffee whilst shopping last week so I thought I’d give it a try incorporating it into a sponge cake. For those of you who are not familiar with this rather retro ingredient it’s basically a coffee and chicory syrup (if you can’t find it in your local supermarket you can buy it online and it is gluten-free and vegan).

As per usual, this is a gluten-free recipe but I’m sure it would work equally as well with usual self-raising flour if you don’t have any intolerances/allergies. I particularly like the Doves Farm flour for this as it makes a beautifully light, fluffy sponge.

If you are a huge coffee fan you may want to make it slightly stronger. I wanted it to taste like coffee but not to the extent that my boys wouldn’t tolerate it, so I think this is a happy medium (it was certainly boy-approved!).

Recipe:

200g unsalted butter

190g caster sugar

4 eggs

200g GF Self-raising flour (I use Doves Farm)

2 dessert spoons of Camp Coffee

For the icing:

80 dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa)

120g unsalted butter

110g icing sugar

3tsp Camp Coffee

A large handful of walnuts

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line two 20cm cake tins.

Soften the butter and mix with the sugar and 2 dessert spoons of Camp Coffee:

Then add the eggs and sieve in the flour (I personally tend to do this in stages but am not sure whether it makes a difference).

Mix it all together and divide between the two tins.

Place on a low shelf in the pre-heated oven for 18 to 20 minutes or until baked and allow to cool.

Whilst the cake is baking make the icing by softening the butter, gently melting the chocolate and then incorporating both with the sieved icing sugar and 3 teaspoons of camp coffee. The icing is quite soft so you may want to refrigerate it for a bit. Unfortunately my icing sugar had gone quite hard so although I did sieve it, the icing still went a bit lumpy:

Once the cakes and icing have cooled, ice once half and cover with walnuts (in retrospect I wish I had used more walnuts than this):

And then top with the other cake and a sparse sprinkling of icing sugar or other garnish (nothing too sweet though).

Enjoy a slice with a nice cup of tea or coffee.

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