A Scrumptious Coffee Cake Recipe

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One of my childhood memories that I’ve always had in my mind is when I used to spend Summer days at my Auntie Betty’s house. She was one of those relationships who wasn’t actually my auntie – I think she was actually my dad’s auntie. But she had this beautiful little cottage that was literally a downstairs living space, and then up some windy steps to an upstairs bedroom. Then a stunning, beautiful floral garden with a little pond. But, the thing I remember loving the most about spending a day at Auntie Betty’s house was that she would always have a homemade coffee cake ready to go.

I’ve never attempted to make a coffee cake, mainly because I didn’t want to ruin the memory with my terrible baking. But, this week I attempted it for the first time, and it was amazing! I got this recipe off the BBC Good Food app, and, honestly, you have to try it.

One comment – for mine I love icing, but this recipe didn’t really have enough for me. Next time I’d be tempted to add a little more of each, or maybe even double it to make it go further.

You will need…

170g butter or margarine

3 large eggs

170g self-raising flour

1 tbsp cooled instant coffee, dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water

For the icing;

225g icing sugar

100g butter or margarine

1 1/2 tbsp instant coffee, dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 180C/160C fan. Line and butter two 18cm sandwich tins, and stand aside. Add the sugar and butter to a bowl and whisk together until fluffy and pale.

Whisk the eggs separately from the other ingredients (I do mine in a mug so I can easily remove any egg shell I get in there) and add to the mixture gradually with 1 tbsp of flour each time. Make sure you don’t use all the flour here. When the eggs and the flour are totally combined add the rest of the flour and fold it into the mixture carefully.

Add in the dissolved coffee to teh mixture, and continue folding it in. Divide the mixture between the sandwich tins, and cook for 25-30 minutes until the cakes are risen and firm to the touch – insert a skewer into the middle to check it comes out clean with no mixture on it.

Leave the cakes to cool in the tins for around 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

While they’re cooling, make the icing. Start by beating the icing sugar with the butter until it’s light and fluffy. Add the dissolved coffee to the mixture, whisk together, and set aside until the cake is ready for icing.

When you’re ready to decorate, spread half the icing on the bottom of one sponge, and sandwich together. Spread the remaining icing on top. To decorate you can use the classic walnuts or, if like me, you don’t like walnuts, be creative!