Coffee Cake Recipe - for Edinburgh Cake Ladies East West Cake event

Here is the recipe for the coffee cake I made for Edinburgh Cake Ladies East West Cake Event this January. It’s based on the coffee cake recipe from Ballymaloe’s 12 Week Professional Cookery Course. Unlike most Ballymaloe recipes where vanilla extract is used and never essence, this uses coffee essence, (really chicory). Camp is the most common brand in the UK. I love cooking with things like this, it's one of those ingredients that feels really nostalgic and old fashioned to use. I suppose it's the same as when people buy golden syrup in a tin instead of those practical plastic bottles. The cake itself is really intense and coffee-ish, even though the sponge on it's own has a quite delicate flavour. You can decorate it how you like, add chocolate curls and bitter cocoa or keep it simple.

My version

This is the recipe from Ballymaloe, I have multiplied the cake ingredients by 50% to make three thick layers from the original two, as I wanted to give the cake more height for the East West Cake theme, 'showstopper cakes'. I did the same for the coffee icing ingredients. The butter cream is increased by 100%. To decorate I added cocoa, chocolate curls and some gold sugar decorations.

Coffee Cake

12oz soft butter
12oz caster sugar
6 large eggs (preferably organic)
12oz plain white flour
11/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp Camp coffee essence

Coffee Butter Cream

4oz butter
8oz icing sugar
4 tsp Camp coffee essence

Coffee Icing

11/2 lb icing sugar
 3 tbsp Camp coffee essence
Boiling water

To decorate (all optional)

3 oz walnut halves
2 oz dark chocolate
2 tbsp cocoa powder
Gold cake decorations

Tins

2 or 3 x 8in round sandwich tins

A note on logistics - I only have two sandwich tins, so made this in two batches. I made two thirds of the cake mixture up first, poured it into the two tins and baked them. Once they were cooked and the cakes cooling, I made up the smaller second batch to fill one tin. I also have a gas oven, with only enough room on one shelf for two tins. If you have enough tins and enough shelf space, two ovens or a fan oven enabling you to cook on multiple shelves you can make the cake in one go.
You can't make it all in one go and then keep a third of the batter back while you wait for the first two to cook as the raising agent will have started to react and the cake won't rise when you eventually bake it. You will also get holes on the top of the cake as it will not  have been put into the heat of the oven quickly enough. You could just cook it with two layers, decreasing the ingredients as above, it will still look impressive as per Ballymaloe here:

Pam's coffee cake from Ballymaloe demo, how I would love to have an oven like theirs!

Right, on with the recipe!

The cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4
2. Line the base of the tins with greaseproof or silicon paper. Brush the sides with melted butter and dust with flour
3. Cream together the butter and sugar, by hand using a wooden spoon or in a food mixer (I use a Kenwood Chef, using the K beater). I recommend a mixer as you need to really beat the butter and sugar till it is pale and fluffy. If you think it's ready still beat it a bit more!
4. Whisk the eggs and add to the mixture bit by bit, mixing well between each addition
5. Sieve the flour with the baking powder and stir gently in by hand. Don't over beat the mixture here, almost fold it in with your spoon.
6. Finally add the coffee essence and mix in, again fold it in gently.
7. Divide the mixture evenly between the prepared tins, paddling it round with a metal spoon (you can use an electric scales if you're that way inclined for a perfect split)
8. Bake for 30 minutes, till the cakes are firm and springy in the middle as well as the sides.
9. Rest in the tin for a minute or two, then turn out onto a cooling rack.
10. If you are making it in two batches, repeat steps 1-9 above from scratch.
11. While it's in the oven melt the chocolate for the chocolate curls over simmering water. Pour over the back of a plate or baking tray and leave somewhere cool.
12. Make the coffee butter cream. Sieve the icing sugar into a large mixing bowl - yes this takes a lot of time but really does give a better result.
13. Whisk the icing sugar with the butter, by hand or machine, as it starts to come together add the coffee essence. Continue to whisk till light and fluffy. Cover with cling film till ready to use.
14. When the cakes are cooled sandwich together the sponges with two layers of icing, evening them out with a bread knife if need be. Have enough cream to fill in the sides to give a straightish line for the icing.

Decoration

1. One the cake is assembled make the icing. Again sieve the icing sugar, add the coffee essence and then enough boiling water to make it the consistency of double cream. Add the water sparingly, not too much in one go or you will be back and forth adding more sugar and liquid all day to get it right!
2. Pour icing over the top and paddle it out and down over the sides, smoothing it with a palate knife. Work quickly or do it in batches, patching it up where needed as the icing can slide down the cake before it dries.  
3. Add walnut halves around the bottom of the cake to decorate, they will hold to the icing. You can also use hazelnuts as they do at Ballymaloe.
4. Once the icing has started to set sieve the cocoa powder over the top. If it's set a bit you can dust off any that has stuck to the sides for a neater finish. You could also combine the cocoa with some fine espresso/instant coffee powder.
5. Scrape the chocolate curls from the plate/tin, using a wide Parmesan slice. Try and take long confident sweeps. If the chocolate is too hard or too soft put it somewhere warmer/colder for a bit. It will soften quickly so you may need to wait and do two batches. I hold my hands under a freezing tap as long as possible to stop the chocolate melting, it helps but it hurts! The curls don't need to be perfect as they're all piled on the top, but a bit of practice and they can start to look surprisingly good.
6. Pile the chocolate curls on the top with the gold cake decorations.

Ballymaloe Day 17, 31st January - The Great Ballymaloe Bake Off

Day 2 of Week 4 and it was my turn to bake a cake this week. I was making the chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Again Kitchen 2 was freezing and there was no softened butter for love nor money (I tried!) This meant it took forever for my butter to be soft enough to beat together with the sugar. We have to do all this by hadn't to start with to learn what the mixture should feel like so it took an epoch to get to the right stage. Once baked they looked okay, but should have made more of a hollow in the centre so the sides and middle cook at the same time, instead the sides were a bit overcooked.

I melted some chocolate for decoration and made a piping bag out of parchment paper. Then I piped some chocolate shamrocks for my cake and a pint of Guinness to continue to Irish theme! Very tasteful! There was a good atmosphere about the kitchen with everyone decorating their cakes. Was well pleased with mine but then had to put that glamour aside and cook some sprouts. They were perfect though! It's good to practice basic stuff like cooking a green vegetable as well as the more exciting recipes.

Tasteful! (and tasty!)

!

The competition

My initials written in chocolate!

All the cakes looked fab, after dinner the winners were announced! Not me and my shamrocks, but one of our housemates in the Pink Cottage won for his coffee cake which we enjoyed later. On the menu for Thursday, the Chicken Liver Paté I sold at the Farmers' Market, another chance to fillet a round fish, Lemon Meringue Pie and White Yeast Bread!

A good day, I loved making the chocolate shapes. I'm bad enough with the nozzled piping bag, there'll be no stopping me with the chocolate now!

Ballymaloe Day 16, 30th January - Dragon Sauce (not the Hungarian Horntail variety)

Into Week 4, I have no idea where the time is going and all I know is I have not practiced segmenting an orange or memorised herbs enough (yes, the exams are approaching). Well, no time to think about that this Monday as I am in a new kitchen, Kitchen 2 over the other side of the school, and it's a new layout of everything to learn all over again. I have a small work station where I am but it does have a great view over the fields which I never had in Possilpark, Glasgow!

I was cooking the roast chicken, again, a fine organic specimen from Aherne's, the Dragoncello sauce and much less excitingly, Creamed Celery. Actually that's being mean to the poor old celery - it can't help not being my favourite vegetable! Removed the chicken fromt he wishbone myself, the third time I think I've done it now, then seasoned it inside and out and rubbed some soft butter onto the skin. I say soft, but it is so cold in Kitchen 2 that the butter was not ideal. Anyway, my chicken went in with his pal for company (shared an oven with someone else to save space) and onto the sauce.

Bit of confusion as to whether I was making the Dragoncello sauce or not as no tarragon to be seen but eventually found out I was and tore the italian bread into pieces to soak in vinegar. The sauce has to be made ahead so the flavours can really develop. There's loads of capers and anchovies and other really strong flavours but it all works really well. Once the herbs are chopped they have to be used straight away and go straight into olive oil and the sauce to retain their fresh flavour. I could have eaten a bowl of this but it seemed to take me forever to to get it all together. Then I cooked the celery which was actually really tasty, I don't like cooked celery as a rule but this was lovely, lots of flavour and still with some bite but the sauce was a bit less saucy than it should have been. The chicken didn't need much attention, quite frankly all the work had been done before I got my hands on it as they are such good chickens! I need to speed up though as one roast chicken and two side dishes does not a productive day make!

Onto the afternoon, and following on from Friday's cake we had 4 different types of sponge, chocolate, coffee, orange and lemon. Rory also demonstrated how to make crystallised flowers and chocolate shapes and at the other end of the spectrum, Gravlax which will be ready in a few days! Yum! There was also french onion soup and how to use up the chicken leftovers but the real excitement was the cakes, we will have a competition tomorrow for the best one!

Cakes - the standard we're aiming for!

Some pheasants hanging outside - country life!