This easy cake has become a staple in our household, and we make at least one a week. It was brought on by the arrival of a massive parcel of walnuts from Germany – my mum’s neighbour has a huge tree and my mum sent them to me! It’s a really easy cake that doesn’t take much faffing – you just mix the ingredients together in a bowl with an electric mixer or a fork, and off you go. That’s how we like our cakes – simple, joyful, and making use of ingredients we already have. It’s a great basic cake recipe for other things, too – if you don’t want it coffee-flavoured then simply replace the coffee flavouring with something else: vanilla, rum, whisky, nutella-mixed-with-milk all work really well. Just make sure it’s the same amount of liquid to get a smooth moist cake.
You’ll need:
For the cake
100 g self-raising flour
100 g sugar
100 g of butter (or margarine, or oil)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon of Camp Coffee (or other chichory-based ‘fake’ coffee. Or a strong ‘real’ coffee)
50 g shelled and chopped walnuts (or more or less if you prefer)
For the frosting
225g icing sugar
75 g mascarpone (or butter, or cream cheese)
A splash of milk or plant milk to loosen it
Mix all the cake ingredients together in a bowl – with a hand mixer, stand mixer, or fork. Pour your mixture into a lightly-greased cake tin – we use a round silicon one of 18 or 20cm diameter, and it comes out nicely.
Bake at 180-200C for c. 20 minutes until golden-brown – you can test if it is done by sticking a fork or knitting needle in it and if it comes out clean, it’s done!
While the cake is in the oven, make the frosting. Just mix all the ingredients together, adding tiny splashes of milk until forms a smooth mass. Put it in the fridge to chill.
Once your cake is fully cooled smear the frosting on it – just cover it thickly. It’s delicious! Chuck on some walnuts to make it pretty, or dust with icing sugar.
Enjoy!
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Want to make another cake? Fruit Cake / Banana Cake /Cinnamon Snails
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