Coffee And Walnut Cake A Classic British Cake For Afternoon Tea Recipes

COFFEE & WALNUT CAKE

Steps:

• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter 2 x 20cm springform cake tins and line with baking parchment. Set aside 2 tbsp of the coffee for the filling.
• Beat the butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and half the remaining coffee in a large bowl with an electric whisk until lump-free. Fold in the finely chopped walnuts, then divide between the tins and roughly spread. Scatter the roughly chopped walnuts over one of the cakes. Bake the cakes for 25-30 mins until golden and risen, and a skewer poked in comes out clean. Drizzle the plain cake with the remaining coffee. Cool the cakes in the tins.
• Meanwhile, make the filling: beat together the icing sugar, cream and mascarpone, then fold in the reserved 2 tbsp coffee. Spread over the plain cake, then cover with the walnut-topped cake and dust with a little icing sugar.

BOOZY COFFEE & WALNUT CAKE

Steps:

• Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Butter two 20cm sandwich tins and line with non-stick baking paper. Toast the walnut halves in the oven for 10 mins. Reserve 10 and chop the rest. Dissolve the instant coffee in 1 tbsp of boiling water, cool and add the basic cake mix (see recipe for Classic Victoria sponge, right), instead of the milk.
• For the filling, beat the mascarpone with the light muscovado sugar and Tia Maria until smooth. Sandwich the cooled cakes with a third of the filling and the chopped walnuts.
• Cover the top and sides of the cake with the rest of the filling and decorate the top with the toasted walnut halves.