i mentioned in my last post that i have lately been returning to old recipes i know like the back of my hand, perhaps out of a need for kitchen comfort, perhaps out of a kind of autopilot mentality given how busy things have been here at casa mitchell. that practice is still going strong, in both baking and cooking, and as a result i find myself sort of at a loss as to what to write. there are certain recipes you make so many times that they absorb a kind of fabric of memory narratives, and in the telling, the stories trip all over each other and get jumbled. it becomes very difficult to stay coherent, nevermind actually just writing about the food.
so we'll start with nigel slater's coffee and walnut cake; a recipe so good he has printed it in both tthe kitchen diaries and tender vol II. my urge to make this came about after i got a kilo bag of walnuts free from work, as my company is very stringent on what needs to be thrown out when, and so they're always erring on the side of caution in terms of things like nuts and fruit, which so far has resulted in hauls of dried cranberries and pine nuts as well. if it's just going to be wasted, i may as well cook with it. luckily my kitchen manager agrees with me. i perused the walnut chapter in tender vol II, looking at all the things i will undoubtedly make over the next couple of months, but i settled eventually, due to familial request, on coffee and walnut cake. i first started making this cake in my second year of university, when i was living in a creaky victorian maisonette in southsea, portsmouth. it was my then-boyfriend's favourite so it got made fairly regularly, and there was a moment for me, where i had made it for his mother, when i realized that she was deliberately displeased at everything i was doing, because she unconvincingly claimed to dislike it intensely, despite the fact that this cake is cake in the ideal. it didn't really fuss me, it has to be said; i am entirely unsurprised when people's parents dislike me, as any environmentally minded, arts studying vegetarian who dresses like a drag queen, drinks like a fish, and swears like a sailor is apt to be. and it did nothing to stop me from continuing to make the cake in question, obviously.
so anyway, the cake. only on this one petty occasion has it not been met with immediate going back for seconds, and i consider it one of my most reliable recipes for emergency requests re: bake sales and the like. so here we are:
coffee and walnut cake
butter- 175g
golden caster sugar, 175g
large eggs, 3
self raising flour, 175g
baking powder, 1 teaspoon
instant coffee granules, 2 teaspoons
walnut pieces, 65g
for the butter cream:
butter, 200g
icing sugar, 400g
instant coffee granules, 2 teaspoons
walnut pieces, 60g
you will need two 20cm loose bottomed sponge tins.
set the oven at 180 degrees c/gas 4. line the base of the sponge tins with baking parchment. beat the butter and caster sugar until light, pale, and fluffy. you could do this by hand but it is far easier and, frankly, better with an electric mixer (not in my house mr. slater!). crack the eggs into a bowl, break them up with a fork, then add them a little at a time to the butter and sugar, beating well after each addition.
mix the flour and the baking powder together and gently mix into the butter and sugar, either with the mixer on a slow speed or by hand, with a large metal spoon. dissolve the coffee granules in a tablespoon of boiling water, then stir into the mixture. chop the walnuts and fold them in gently.
divide the cake mixture between two tins, smooth the top lightly and bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes. remove from the oven and leave to cool.
to make the butter cream, beat the butter with an electric beater (ahem, or by hand) till soft and pale, then add the icing sugar and beat till smooth and creamy. stir a tablespoon of boiling water into the coffee granules, then mix it into the butter cream. fold in the walnut pieces.
as soon as the cake is cool, turn one half of it upside down on a plate or board, spread it with a good third of the butter cream, then place the second cake half on top. spread the remaining butter cream on top and round the sides.
i have to say it actually felt odd reading that recipe in depth to the point of typing it out, having made it regularly for a fair few years now. anyway, here is the obligatory badly-taken picture of said cake (i couldn't get to photographing it before my family fell to eating it, i shit you not):
so yeah, again, sorry for the bad picture, but it should be a bit of an indicator of how much was gone within two minutes of it being iced, eh? i know you'd think a coffee and walnut cake is kind of unremarkable, but it's exactly the sort of cake i like to make. it doesn't require any razzle dazzle in the form of unusual ingredients or sugar architecture, it's moist, textured, and plastered in enough buttercream to quietly hold its own without. it's the kind of cake everyone thinks of fondly, with either real or false nostalgia depending on age, unless they happen to be impossible to please matriarchs, and if you get hold of a piece good enough to warrant seconds, it's the kind of cut-and-come-again cake that was basically invented for seconds, and thirds, and so on. i would also like to note that this recipe keeps pretty well, which is a good job, since it makes a big cake, but since i've been living with my family i've found the shelf-life of cakes to not be nearly so big a problem.
i don't often outwardly implore people reading this to absolutely try one of the recipes i have posted, but with this recipe, i would wholeheartedly recommend doing so. it's a totally well behaved cake batter from beginning to end, and literally never fails. besides, you guys, buttercream icing. not enough things have buttercream icing these days. i will never turn down ganache, or cream cheese frosting, but buttercream icing, i am afraid, will always win the day for me. whether it's because it reminds me of when i was little and chocolate cake always came iced with butter cream (we're talking pre-chocolate fudge cake as a menu standard days, here), or because it's basically an excuse to just eat butter and sugar, i don't know, but you really can't beat buttercream icing in my book. i like how decidedly unfancy it is, how it gets all over your fingers when you eat, and, let's face it, how ridiculously sweet it is. i may have to singlehandedly try and kickstart the buttercream revolution if i keep thinking about it. in which case, i've got icing sugar to buy, so until next time lovely readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment