Coffee Cake

It may have taken me years but I recently worked out the difference between British coffee cake and American coffee cake. I can’t speak for other nations! British coffee cake is coffee flavoured cake. American coffee cake is cake that you eat while drinking coffee. I know I am biased but I know which name makes more sense to me…

So this is a coffee flavoured cake with coffee icing. And you might be surprised by how many children enjoy coffee cake. It can be made with decaffeinated coffee if you don’t want to give your little ones the caffeine, and I would advise against giving them chocolate covered coffee beans on their slices! You can also get chocolate decorations that look like coffee beans.

Coffee cake – cake flavoured with coffee

I used a minimal amount of coffee flavoured buttercream as I don’t think coffee cake needs a lot of icing: you can of course use more if you like it sweeter. I used about two thirds of the recipe quantity below.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 heaped teaspoons instant coffee

225g butter

225g caster sugar

4 eggs

225g SR flour

Method

Grease two 8″ sandwich tins and line the bases. Set the oven to 175°C.

Dissolve the coffee in a teaspoon or so of boiling water and allow to cool.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy.

Add the eggs, one at a time.

Sieve in the flour and fold into the butter mixture.

Add the cooled coffee mixture to the cake mixture and mix in.

Divide equally between the cake tins.

Ready to bake

Bake for around 20-25 minutes or until springy to the touch.

Allow to cool in the tins for a few minutes, then remove and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Make the icing:

Ingredients

1-2 teaspoons instant coffee

250g icing sugar, sieved

80g butter

20ml milk

Method

Dissolve the coffee in a teaspoon or so of boiling water and allow to cool.

Beat the icing sugar and butter together until it is well mixed and starts to come together.

Add the coffee mixture to the milk and slowly add to icing sugar mixture while still beating.

Beat for a few minutes so the frosting is light and fluffy. Add more dissolved coffee if you would like the taste to be stronger.

To assemble, spread just under half the buttercream on one of the cakes.

Ice the bottom layer

Top with the other one and spread the remaining icing over the top layer.

Coffee sponge cake

This looks really cool decorated with coffee beans, whether real or chocolate, but you could also leave it plain or grate some plain chocolate over the top.

So there you have it. Coffee cake. Great with coffee!

This Coffee Cake qualifies under both definitions

Categories: Baking, Cakes, Recipes

Tags: baking, cake, coffee, coffee cake, coffee morning, frosting, icing, recipe