Читать книгу The British Baking Book - Regula Ysewijn - Страница 32

Coffee and walnut cake

35

For 6–8 people

For the cake

1 cup (225 g) butter, at room

temperature

1 cup (200 g) demerara (coarse raw

sugar)

4 eggs

1¾ cups (225 g) plain white flour

3 tsp instant coffee dissolved in

1 Tbsp hot water, cooled

pinch of cocoa powder

pinch of ground cinnamon

pinch of sea salt

2 tsp baking powder

¾ cup (75 g) walnuts, roughly chopped

butter, for greasing

flour, for dusting

walnut halves, to garnish

For the buttercream

1 cup (240 g) butter, at room

temperature

3½ cups (400 g) confectioners’ sugar

heaping 2 tsp instant coffee dissolved in

1 Tbsp hot water, cooled

For two 7-to 8-inch round cake tins

Preheat your oven to 350°F and prepare the tins (see page 21).

Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a

time, and make sure that each egg is completely incorporated before adding the

next one. Add a teaspoon of the flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture

from separating. Stir in the instant coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt.

Carefully fold the remaining flour and the baking powder into the batter so that

the volume is retained. Mix in the walnuts, divide the batter between the cake tins,

and smooth the tops. Firmly tap the tins on the bench to distribute the batter and

remove any air bubbles. Bake in the middle of the oven for 20–25 minutes.

Let the cakes rest for 5 minutes before taking them out of the tins, then let them

cool further on a wire rack.

For the buttercream, beat the butter in an electric mixer until it turns white; this

is an important step. Add the confectioners’ sugar, one spoonful at a time, until

it is completely absorbed. Finally, add the instant coffee and mix well until the

buttercream is fluffy.

To assemble the cake, choose the cake with the smoothest top and set it aside.

Spread the other cake with buttercream or use a piping bag fitted with a star

nozzle to pipe a pattern over the cake. Place the second cake on top and lightly

press down. Decorate the top of the cake with buttercream and walnut halves.

Coffee and walnut cake can be found in every tearoom. Even though it’s old fashioned, it hasn’t fallen out of favor.

You can make one cake and decorate it with buttercream, or you can make several layers with buttercream in between.

You can make buttercream in several different ways. Italian buttercream is made with Italian meringue, which is made

by whipping egg whites together with hot sugar syrup. The meringue is then beaten until it has cooled, after which the

butter is added. This buttercream has a very white appearance. For Swiss buttercream, a mixture of egg white and sugar

is heated in a bain-marie to 160°F, then the egg whites are whipped and butter is added. The French method isn’t that

different: they first make a pâte à bombe by boiling water with sugar at 250°F. In the meantime, they whip the egg

whites, then add the sugar syrup and beat until cold. Subsequently, cubes of butter are added to create a creamy, smooth

buttercream. The Germans do it completely differently and make a mousseline cream that consists of one part butter

and two parts pastry cream. There are many more versions, but here I’ve used the simplest, which is the English

or American version. This buttercream is not really smooth, but its advantage is the simplicity – anyone can make it.