Coffee Walnut Cake

Last Saturday, my family had a belated Mother's day celebration at my grandmother's house. I really love celebrations like this because it's not only an occasion that calls for all my relatives to gather together, there would always be super yummy and extremely decadent food prepared by my aunts and cousin (salivating right now). Amazing food paired with wonderful company is what I would call a perfect party. I had initially wanted to make this cake the previous week for my mom on Mother's Day, but decided to make it on Saturday instead as it was a relatively large cake and it would take my family forever to finish it. Anyway, I thought that a coffee flavoured cake would be a great choice because my aunts, uncles and grandmama all love coffee plus it would be a nice change from those typical cakes that we get from bakeries.

When I first took the cake out of the oven, it smelled of coffee but only faintly (it still smelled really good tho) Although sadly I couldn't really taste much of the coffee from the cake itself, the taste of it is quite impressive I would say. The texture may look dense, but in your mouth it is light and fluffy, and you can feel the tiny tiny bits of finely crushed walnuts on your tongue (thus adding more dimension and of course 'fun' when eating the cake) with the taste of walnut hitting your palette like gentle waves from the ocean hitting the fine grains of sand on the shore.

As for the coffee buttercream, everyone agreed that it way too cloyingly sweet, to the point where it could potentially destroy the flavours of the cake because the buttercream tasted of 80% sugar and 20% coffee! I didn't want to tweak the recipe because I was new to making buttercream and I didn't have extra time nor ingredients to make a new batch. The coffee from the buttercream did complement the cake perfectly, but the next time I make this (which is anytime soon), I would definitely opt for a swiss meringue buttercream which is less sweet or omit the frosting if I was just making the cake for a simple afternoon indulgence.

A slice of this right now with a cup of freshly brewed chamomile would definitely be therapeutic.



Recipe: ciderwithrosie