Coffee & walnut cake

Coffee & walnut cake

This veteran of a thousand cake sales tastes seriously, deliciously good. Serve it in big slices and your friends will thank you for it

Difficulty and servings

Easy

Serves 8

Preparation and cooking times

Total time

Ready in 1hr

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 170C/fan 150C/fan 3. Line a deep 18cm loose-based or springform cake tin. Beat the butter and sugar together with electric beaters and then beat in the eggs, flour and baking powder.
  2. Beat in 1 tbsp of the coffee mixture and then add up to another tbsp little by little until the mixture drops easily off the spoon. Keep the rest of the coffee mixture for the icing.
  3. Stir in half the walnuts, snapping them in half as you drop them into the bowl. Spoon into the tin, level the top and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly. Cool.
  4. To make the icing, beat the butter until soft and then beat in 200g icing sugar followed by the remaining coffee mixture, little by little. Stop when you have a depth of colour and flavour that you like. If the icing looks a little soft, beat in extra icing sugar.
  5. Cut the cake into 3 slices horizontally and then sandwich the layers together with some of the icing, you need a reasonably thick layer. Ice the top of the cake with the rest of the icing and decorate with the rest of the walnuts.
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624 kcalories, protein 5.4g, carbohydrate 55.4g, fat 43.8 g, saturated fat 22.5g, fibre 0.9g, salt 1.02 g

Recipe from olive magazine, October 2007.

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Latest comments and suggestions

Results 1-20

  • 2007-11-17 14:55:29.449972

    Vicky M commented on this recipe

    Personally I don't like Coffe flavoured things. I made this cake for a friend who is poorly, and this is her favourite cake. She absolutely loved it, as did my mum, nan & friend Pat. It is a quick and easy cake to make and my lot were amazed with the results.

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  • 2007-11-17 14:55:45.749153

    Vicky M rated this recipe

    4 stars

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  • 2008-02-13 14:44:06.092572

    Northern Nigella rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    This is quick and easy to make, all the family loved it. Try it with a slightly higher concentration of coffee for a really good flavour I would use 2.5 tbspn of coffee next time and 25g less of sugar in the sponge mixture as the frosting gives the majority of the sweetness you need and less sugar in the sponge will allow the coffee aroma to come through in the sponge as well as the frosting.

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  • 2008-03-12 15:55:48.426095

    Spatrick rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Delcious recipe and fairly easy for someone who doesn't make many cakes!!! One thing I think would work better would be to sieve the icing sugar before mixing it with the butter! Also I couldn't manage to cut the cake into 3 - but 2 worked fine!!

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  • 2008-03-27 20:35:34.18611

    Fave Recipes rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    I made this for my nan but I was in a hurry and put all the nuts in the cake with none left for the top! So nan didn't get any, I was worried for her dentures! So me and the children ate it, we all thought it was very nice. Sorry nan!!

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  • 2008-04-18 15:59:32.89666

    James Court YMCA rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    The cake turned out really well. the cake tin wasn't quite the right size but it was very nice anyway.We enjoyed the crunchiness or the nuts and the sweetness of the icing.

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  • 2008-04-22 18:44:18.481819

    clairejprice rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Nice...verrryyyy sweet! couldnt eat much of it! I think I would cut down on sugar next time and use a little less topping! Overall good just a bit sweet for me!

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  • 2008-07-13 09:59:28.678304

    Coffeebean rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I combined this recipe with one of Delia's - drizzling the sponge with some strong espresso coffee. Everyone absolutely loved it!

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  • 2008-07-20 20:22:46.043395

    allyb commented on this recipe

    I have made this loads of times....my stepdad is allergic to nuts so I just leave the walnuts out - this does reduce the bulk of the cake so that you can't really divide it but that is fine as it works great just iced on the top. You won't need all of the coffee mixture doing it this way..I usually just halve what is in the recipe and use just what I need of it. Try decorating it with chocolate curls. I use large eggs, also at room temperature.

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  • 2008-07-20 20:23:10.138287

    allyb rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    forgot the rating!

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  • 2008-08-14 16:24:22.422405

    cookingsis rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    i think that this recipie neaded a bit more coffee so that you can taste it even more and dont forget to keep one or two walnuts for the decoration!

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  • 2008-08-19 08:31:43.094126

    Robyn rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Amazing butter icing... cake is lovely too but didnt rise very well. This may have been my oven though. Looks great but no idea how you would split into three. I will probably try this again some time as it really is perfect for coffee morning or work etc... looks brilliant too. Yum :)

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  • 2008-08-21 17:52:35.720277

    fernster rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Read the comments before i tried the cake and added slightly more coffee. The cake was lovely, icing was great, the only thing is it didn't rise very well. Very easy to make

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  • 2008-09-25 19:54:15.601015

    mama fish rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    Nice & easy to make. Had trouble cutting into three slices so think in future will just stick to two & it'll still look impressive.

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  • 2008-10-16 14:01:46.883092

    Helster commented on this recipe

    I tried this but made one layer of sponge vanilla and made the other coffee. Looked fab together! x

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  • 2008-10-22 12:19:15.121252

    sprymidget rated and commented on this recipe

    2 stars

    I made this specially for my mum, the first time I've tried making a coffee and walnut cake and it was totally hopeless. I'd read the comments about it not rising but tried anyway. As soon as I put the mixture in the tin I knew it was going to be a disaster, it barely covered the bottom. I thought I had followed the recipe incorrectly but two other people checked it and I had followed it to the letter. It tasted great (my mum says - I hate walnuts) but it looked useless, I could hardly slice it into two yet alone three. Won't be doing this one again, I've got another recipe that gives a different list of ingredients. If it's good, I'll post it.

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  • 2008-10-30 15:06:09.833827

    Chlo-Jo rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    Absoloutly scrumptious but i woulnd't reccomend eating the whole thing to yourself as it is very filling!

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  • 2008-11-11 17:01:09.558107

    Anna rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    After reading the comments above, I tried this using 200g of everything instead of 125g. It was gorgeous but still impossible to cut into 3 layers! I added extra coffee, mainly because i mis-read the recipe, lovely.

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  • 2008-11-20 18:19:39.150614

    jaffapie rated and commented on this recipe

    5 stars

    I made this recently with a few variations - instead of a cake I made cupcakes, added a few extra grams of walnuts (or 30!) Absolutely delicious - I'll be making this again without a doubt!

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  • Binder photo AEJ

    2009-02-19 17:11:11.032743

    AEJ rated and commented on this recipe

    4 stars

    This is a good recipe. Nothing outstanding, but a lovely cake was had. I made two and didn't ice the second one immediately and instead poured more coffee into the sponge before icing. Yummy.

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Difficulty and servings

Easy

Serves 8

Preparation and cooking times

Total time

Ready in 1hr

Ingredients

  • 125g butter , at room temperature
  • 125g caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 125g self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 heaped tbsp coffee , dissolved in 100ml water
  • 100g walnut halves

ICING

  • 200g butter
  • 2-300g icing sugar
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624 kcalories, protein 5.4g, carbohydrate 55.4g, fat 43.8 g, saturated fat 22.5g, fibre 0.9g, salt 1.02 g

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