Coffee Walnut Sponge with Chocolate Buttercream icing

Wishing Happy Thanks Giving and Wonderful Holidays to all friends in US !

Grey sky, rain, wind, Chill ... that’s pretty much the weather here these days and moreover the sunset at 4 o clock makes matter worse, for all these reason and other reasons I find it hard to get  into kitchen for cooking. My kitchen is really cold and there is no heating in kitchen. So I even dread the thought of cooking but on the other hand I am in full mojo for baking, after all its Christmas and holiday season soon. Shops and streets are already decorated and people are busy buying Christmas gifts for loved ones, so it’s lovely atmosphere expect the weather part. When the weather really gets to me I always tend to bake and it really helps, baking and winter goes hand in hand for some reason and that’s why I guess I have more tendency to bake during the winter!

Coming to today’s post, I would have never made this cake if I haven’t tasted it, so when a friend made this cake and gave it to me I couldn’t stop eating it, it was just so yumm. I did some googling and also got hold of her recipe book and all the recipes were pretty much the same so I made this cake adapting all those recipes. Coffee and walnut combination is a combination made in heaven, if you still haven’t tried it you are missing out a great flavour. I have baked this cake and taken it to India for my cousins and family this summer and they all loved it and they have asked me take the same cake next time as well, in fact when my parents visited us they asked to send one through them when they were going back !

Ingredients (serves 8-10)

( Cup measurement given is in a 200 ml cup)

Plain flour – 150 gm ( 1 1/3 cup)

Baking powder – 1 ½ tsp

Salt - pinch

Butter – 175 gm ( ¾ cup)

Sugar – 175 gm (  roughly ¾ cup) + 2 tbs

Coffee powder – 1 ½ tbs

Boiling water – 50 ml ( ¼ cup)

Walnut – 75 gm ( 50 +25 )

Eggs – 3 large

Method

1. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and keep it aside.
2. Dissolve 1 tbs of coffee powder in 50 ml of boiling water and keep it aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy for about 5 minutes.
4. In a bowl break three eggs and lightly beat them with a spoon or whisk.
5. With hand mixer or electric mixer running add the beaten eggs gradually to the creamed mixture adding a tbs of sifted flour in between(to avoid curdling) .
6. Beat until eggs have been mixed well into mixture.
7. Blitz 50 gm of Walnut with 2  tbs of sugar into a nutty powder ( if you  do not add sugar you will end up with a  paste !) and add this to the creamed mixture and beat in.
8. Add the sifted flour, fold in.
9. Add the coffee and  25 gm of chopped walnut pieces to the batter and fold in.
10. Pour the  batter into a two 8 inch prepared/ greased cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 20-25 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

 Chocolate buttercream Icing

Ingredients

Butter - 100 gm - (approximately 1/2 cup )
Icing sugar - 200 gm ( 1 1/2 cup )
Double cream - 50 ml
Meringue powder - 1tsp
Coffee liqueur / Vanilla extract  - 1tsp
salt - pinch
 Dark  chocolate - 40 gm (melted )

Method

1.In a mixing bowl add 1/3 of the sugar, salt and meringue powder and mix.
2.Add cream to it and beat it for 5 minutes in an electric mixer with paddle attachment 
3.Add remaining sugar and beat for 3 minutes.
4.Add butter little by little and beat for 5-7 minutes.
5.Add coffee liqueur, melted chocolate and beat for 1 minute.

Assembling the cake

Once the cake is cool, place one cake on the cake stand/ board and spread the buttercream to top. Place the second layer on top and spread the remaining buttercream on top and decorate it with some walnut pieces or as you wish ! 

Sending this to Cakes Mela @ Cooking 4 all Seasons
also to Bake fest # 25 @ CooksJoy