Tuesday 19 April 2011

Coffee & Almond Cake



The second cake I made yesterday during my week of baking was this Coffee & Almond Cake. It's based on Mary Berry's recipe for a Gateau Moka aux Amandes which is in her Ultimate Cake Book. It's a fantastic book with recipes for pretty much every sort of cake you might want to bake - along with the Readers Digest Cookery Year, it was one of my best charity shop purchases!

I followed the original recipe for the sponge, but made an all butter coffee butter cream and used a double shot of espresso instead of coffee essence. It's a simple, yet stunning, cake to make and perfect for afternoon tea and cakes in the sunshine!

Ingredients

For the sponge:

3 medium eggs
4oz caster sugar
3oz self raising flour

For the butter cream:

6oz unsalted butter
10oz icing sugar
double shot espresso

Topping:

6oz shredded blanched almonds, lightly toasted


Method

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Grease and line a 9" round cake tin.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together with an electric whisk until pale and thick. The mixture should be thick enough to leave a trail. Gently fold in the sifted flour. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the sponge is golden and cooked through. Leave to cool, then turn out of the tin and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the butter cream, start by making a double espresso and leave to cool. If you don't have a coffee machine you could make a small amount of strong coffee in a cafetiere or use 2 tbsp coffee essence as Mary Berry does in her recipe, but I haven't tried the essence so can't vouch for it!

Put the butter and sifted icing sugar in a food processor and mix until smooth. Add the cooled espresso.

Once the sponge is cool carefully slice in half horizontally. Sandwich the two halves together with a little of the coffee butter cream. Then use the remaining butter cream to coat the top and sides of the cake. Finally, gently scatter the toasted almonds all over the top and sides of the cake.

7 comments:

  1. Cor... Totally my kind of cake. Now, why haven't I got a 9" tin so that I can make this straightaway without fiddling about with the quantities? *wails*

    Beautifully done, Naomi. More, please!

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  2. This looks splendifirous- I love the idea of all the toasted almonds. Would kill for a slice of it with a lovely coffee, sitting in the sunshine.

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  3. Ultimate Cakes was one of my first cookbooks and is still one of my all time favourites! I love the look of this cake with the almond coating, it looks really unusual :)

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  4. An utter work of art and am sure tastes even better than it looks - if that is possible?!

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  5. This cake looks incredible . . .but you've not included a photo of the inside. I guess I'm just going to have to make it to find out. yum.

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  6. Coffee cake is one of my favourites, but I never bothered to make it. This is on the list

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  7. This looks wonderful. I adore coffee cake, and find Mary Berry's recipes work every time. I'm working on a re-issue of one of her books at the moment and re-reading her recipes is a pleasure.

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