COFFEE AND WALNUT TRAYBAKE

I had my eye on this recipe for the next time I needed to make a cake for a bit of a gathering and it didn't disappoint.  It’s from the original "Baking Bible" by Mary Berry.

It’s an all-in-one recipe and instead of butter I used the last of my pack of "spreadable" butter called Nordpak which came from Aldi in the UK.  (A number of very similar spreads and butters are available in France.)  After my experience with the lemon cake I did make sure it was very soft by giving it a few seconds of the "soften butter" function on my microwave, i.e. at a very low power.  I have to be careful with this as it’s easy to take it too far and end up with melted butter instead, but it's a useful function.

There are subtle differences between baking products available in France and those from the UK.  Some of my friends have trouble with the flour and the range of sugars on sale.  I'm getting used to using them and on this occasion I used a French brand of icing sugar (sucre glacé) for the buttercream topping.  Somehow this icing sugar seemed "claggy" or almost damp and it was taking ages to sift it.  In truth it had to be pushed through the sieve.  So I resorted to the food processor which made light work of it, giving the icing sugar a blitz on its own first.  Looking at the picture in the book the icing seemed quite soft so I added a few more spoonfuls to make it stiffer.

The cake was not the lightest sponge I have ever made but it tasted good and went down well.  It had risen beautifully and cut into 24 generous squares, ideal for a crowd, just the right size to handle and eat without getting too messy.  I trimmed the edges before icing and slicing to remove the crust from the sides.

Ingredients

For the cake

225g softened butter or spreadable butter product

225g light muscovado sugar (I used mostly soft light brown sugar as that's what I had)

 275g self raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs (I used 5 small eggs as they weighed about the same)

2 tblsp milk

2 tblsp Camp coffee essence

75g chopped walnuts

For the icing

75g softened butter

225g icing sugar 

2 tsp milk

2 tsp Camp coffee essence

walnut pieces to decorate

Method

Line a greased traybake tin, 30 x 23cm (mine was slightly bigger) with baking paper.  Preheat the oven to 180 C / 160 fan / gas mk 4.  

Put all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until well combined.  

Spoon into the prepared tin and level the top.  Bake for 35-40 minutes until done.  Mine was a little over at 35 minutes probably due to the slightly larger tin, so I would check at 30 minutes next time.

Cool in the tin.

To make the buttercream put the icing sugar into a food processor and blitz for a few seconds to remove any lumps.  Add the coffee, butter and milk and process until combined and smooth.

Make sure the cake is completely cold and slice off the edges.  Spread the buttercream over the top and cut into squares of the size you prefer. 

Decorate each square with half a walnut or a few bits of chopped walnuts.

Cuts into 24 squares.