The actual recipe was for "Coffee and Walnut Cake" but as I made one or two substitutions and it turned out well, I'll give you my version. You'll notice it's minus the coffee icing on top. I ran out of icing sugar and in any case it was good enough without it!
Ingredients for the cake:
75g pecan halves
175g butter
175g soft brown sugar
3 large eggs
175g wheat and gluten free self-raising flour
1tsp xanthan gum
11/2 tsp gluten-free baking powder
11/2 tbsp instant coffee, mixed with 2tbsp boiling water
For the filling:
75g butter
150g icing sugar
1tsp instant coffee mixed with a couple of drops of boiling water
For the coffee syrup:
1 heaped tsp instant coffee
50g demerara sugar
- Pre-heat the oven to 170C/150C fan/Gas 3. Line two 8" sandwich tins with baking parchment.
- Toast the pecan nuts by placing in the oven on a baking tray for 7 mins. Once toasted, keep 12 for decoration and finely chop the rest.
- Cream the butter and light brown soft sugar until light and fluffy.
- Gradually add the beaten eggs and then sift the flour with the baking powder and xanthan gum and fold into the egg mixture using a metal spoon to avoid knocking the air out.
- Add the coffee and pecan pieces and mix until smooth.
- Spoon into the cake tins and level with the back of a spoon.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until the cake begins to shrink away from the edge of the tin.
- Whilst the cakes are baking prepare the coffee syrup by placing the coffee and sugar in a heatproof jug and adding 55ml boiling water. Stir briskly until the sugar is dissolved.
- Remove the baked cakes from the oven and prick all over with a metal skewer.
- Spoon the syrup all over as evenly as possible. Leave the cake in the tins to soak up the syrup.
- When the cakes are cold, sandwich with coffee butter icing and decorate the top with the pecan halves.
It is moist, flavoursome and delicious but be warned.... it disappears fast!
3 comments:
What a brilliant recipe to have -- especially as we have several friends who must eat gluten free foods. Will health food stores have things like xanthan gum and gluten free flour and baking powder?
Most of the big supermarkets in the UK stock gluten free flour nowadays. The main brand is Doves Farm and they do a range of flours, including self-raising, plain, rice flour, gram flour and bread flours. Xanthan gum is naturally gluten free so it can be bought from the supermarkets.
ASDA do an own brand gluten free self-raising and plain flour and Tesco's own brand baking powder is gluten free (and much cheaper than the specialist producers).
Hope this helps... and that you enjoy the cake if you get the chance to bake it.
I made a wheat friendly version of this last night -- local stoneground flour, sourdough, walnuts. Boy is it sweet! I can't believe the original recipe suggests icing the top and using even more sugar!! Delicious though :-)
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