Coffee and walnut - a cake to die for?
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
"No wonder the infallible Nigel Slater has chosen it as his last meal on earth." Felicity Cloake
I'm trying to remember whether I have ever eaten a coffee and walnut cake. Surely I have somewhere. It's so quintessentially English. And this version from Karen Burns-Booth on the Great British Chefs website, may well be the quintessential version of Coffee and walnut cake loaded with buttercream and very home-made looking. As Nigel says:
"there is a fragility to a well-made coffee and walnut cake, the softest crumbs held together by the sweetest honey-coloured frosting. There is no cake so tender."
So tender that it would probably be difficult to eat, as this slice from the lady of Kitchen Delights, who made Nigel's cake seems to have found, when attempting to cut a tempting looking slice for her photograph. Such a light and crumbly looking cake and a more solid icing and filling, that would either hold it all together, or make it fall apart. I do remember butter cream filling and icing though. I think it was my favourite.
There is no official photograph of Nigel's cake that I can find. The recipe is in his A Cook's Book - but no picture and online too. I wonder why? If it's his very favourite cake, why is there not a picture of it? Did his fall apart like the one from Kitchen Delights and so was deemed unphotgraphable? Felicity Cloake has a small thumbnail of her attempt at his cake, and it does indeed look very similar to her own Perfect coffee and walnut cake - as does another Nigel admirer's attempt - Feeding Boys. And I do have to say that the very fact that they all look so delightfully home-made is an attraction as Nigel so nicely puts it.
"The sort of cake you are more likely to find at the Midsommer Norton village fête than at the Place de la Madeleine's exquisite Laudrée patisserie."
Do they still have home-made cakes at village fêtes and school fundraisers? Or have health and safety fears stopped such delights?
Both Nigel and Felicity however rave about the taste:
"As home-made cakes go, I am not sure anything comes close to this one, the layers of sponge so airy, the buttercream's shocking sweetness seen off by the 'adult' bitterness of coffee and walnuts." Nigel Slater
"It has got everything: the fluffy butteriness of the Victoria, the crunchy nuts of the carrot and the bittersweetness of a rich, dark fruit cake – all that, and buttercream too. No wonder the infallible Nigel Slater has chosen it as his last meal on earth." Felicity Cloake
There are two main bones of contention on the making of this cake - the coffee and the icing. Well not bones of contention exactly - more a difference of opinion. Maybe not even that. A difference of preferences.
The coffee - of which Felicity Cloake says that : "coffee is the backbone of this recipe". So is it espresso coffee from the machine, instant espresso powder, or instant espresso granules? - on which topic Nigel tells us:
"About the coffee. I have flavoured cake and frosting with both strong home-made espresso and instant coffee granules, and I have come to the conclusion that the latter gives a richer, more rounded flavour. The only bore is having to go out and buy the stuff. And if anyone looks as if they are about to get snooty with you, just remind them that Elizabeth David apparently drank instant coffee by the mugful.
Which is interesting because in none of the few photos of Elizabeth David is she seen drinking coffee but in several she has a glass of red wine in her hand.
And the buttercream - well the Americans don't seem to go for the buttercream and prefer a runnier kind of icing and apparently Delia's Coffee and walnut sponge cake has a rather more complicated kind of icing:
"a coffee mousseline, also known as a French buttercream, the tortuous creation of which involves whipping boiling sugar syrup into egg yolks." Felicity Cloake
From all of this stuff about village fêtes and homeliness you might get the idea that this recipe has been around forever. And yet apparently not. The theory in fact is that it came from an ad for McDougall's self-raising flour in 1934 - which by the way was only invented in 1845 by one Henry Jones. The Tasting Table website has a quite interesting article on the origins of the cake, from where I linked to the ad, with the author of the article - Hope Ngo telling us that a:
"good number of recipes we inherited from our mothers and grandmothers came from the labels on packages of chocolate chips, pumpkin pie filling, and Velveeta processed cheese."
Yes that's all American stuff but the same would probably apply elsewhere. And maybe that's where my mother got some of her recipes. You can still find recipes on labels on jars, tins and packets, and maybe one should give them a go every now and then. Ditto for the promotional ads in the supermarket magazines that include recipes. And definitely if you go to the websites of food manufacturers you will often find recipes there too.
I'll close with a handful of recipes from the most likely sources - first three for the 'classic'version: Coffee and walnut layer cake - Nigella Lawson; Coffee and walnut cake - Mary Berry and The best coffee and walnut cake - Jamie Oliver who seems to go for runny icing for the top and buttercream in the middle.
And two outliers: Capt.Tom Moore's coffee and walnut birthday cake - Jamie Oliver and Coffee and walnut financiers - Yotam Ottolenghi/Feedster. Definitely fancier.
I tried to find good Australian versions but interestingly could not find any. Julie Goodwin had one which looked very similar to Jamie's birthday cake above, but otherwise nothing. Coffee cakes but not coffee and walnut.
Maybe next time I have to cater for a book group I'll have a go. No use doing it for just David and I because he doesn't like walnuts.
YEARS GONE BY
August 27
2025 - A lucky dip quickie
2023 - Dribs and drabs
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2019 - A 'real' chef
2018 - Nothing
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