Eat: Espresso Coffee And Walnut Cake -

Rich espresso, crunchy walnuts and sweet, creamy icing combine to make this delicious Espresso Walnut and Coffee Cake. Perfect for coffee lovers, the trick to this cake is to use good quality, strong espresso coffee, apart from that it really is a very simple recipe that can be made in advance for a special occasion or if you are having visitors dropping by.

Ingredients

Cake

1/2 a cup of walnuts, roughly chopped

1 1/2 cups of plain flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 a teaspoon of salt

1 cup of sugar

125 grams of butter, melted

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

2 eggs

4 tablespoons of rich, strong espresso coffee, cold

1/3 of a cup of milk

Icing

1 cup of icing sugar

1 tablespoon of rich, strong espresso coffee

2 tablespoons of softened butter

2 tablespoons of cream cheese

9-10 walnut halves, to serve.

Method

Pre- heat oven to 180C (350F). Combine all of the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, melted butter, vanilla, coffee and milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir thoroughly until all ingredients are fully combined. Stir through chopped walnuts.

Pour cake batter in to a greased 8-inch cake tin. Place in pre-heated oven and cook for 20-25 minutes. Insert a metal skewer to test if cake is cooked through, if the skewer comes out clean in the middle the cake is cooked.

Remove from oven and turn out on to a rack and allow to cool.

To make icing, mix all ingredients together and using beaters mix until the icing is mixed through. You can do this by hand however using electric beaters will give you a lighter, fluffier icing.

Ice cake with icing mix and top with walnut halves. Serve with a pot of coffee and enjoy!