Espresso Walnut Cake, Happy Mother’s Day!

Can anything be more satisfying than a cup of hot espresso and a bar of dark chocolate. Deep dark flavors can satiate all your cravings than anything else. That’s the sensuality of these two bitter yet satisfying treats. I love anything coffee. If I have a choice of having a dessert after dinner, I would look for options with coffee in it. Fruity and chocolate dessert would definitely be second on my list without any doubt. I have made coffee ice cream too, and that is my most favorite flavor after vanilla. Now when summer is upon us, I’ll soon be making it again this year. I am just waiting for my family to be with me next month.

But for now, I baked an espresso cake for them while I visited them this weekend. And it was special being the Mother’s Day! The alarm rang pretty early in the morning. I was still asleep when I walked into my kitchen and put my little espresso maker on the stove. Oh my! The aroma of freshly brewed coffee was good enough to bring me to action. And I knew that it would going to be something amazing today, even before I had started whipping the batter. And it’s true that good ingredients speak for themselves. This espresso walnut cake is adapted from Jamie Oliver’s, a legend himself. It couldn’t go wrong. Additionally I layered the cake with some white chocolate buttercream, instead of plain vanilla buttercream, as suggested in the recipe. Drizzled it with espresso glaze to add more coffee kick to the cake {though I kept the sugar low in the glaze, which is why the glaze looks quite runny}. More coffee, more happiness!

Ingredients

Cake

150 gm unsalted butter
75 walnuts, plus extra for topping
175 gm sugar
3 eggs
150 gm plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
50 ml cold espresso

Filling

25 gm unsalted butter
50 gm white chocolate, chopped
2 tbsp icing sugar
1/4 cup cold heavy cream

Espresso glaze

50 gm icing sugar
20 ml strong espresso

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 180 degree C and grease an 8 inch springform pan and keep aside.
2. Sift the flour, salt, baking powder together and keep aside.
3. Pulse the walnuts in a food processor until coarsely crumbed. You can do this with a knife as well.
4. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl, until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Gently fold the flour and walnuts along with espresso.
5. Pour the batter into pan and bake for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool the cake in pan for 10 minutes and then invert onto a wire rack to let it cool completely.
7. For the filling, melt the chocolate in microwave or on a double boiler and let it cool. Once, chocolate is completely cooled, beat the butter with sugar and cream until light and fluffy. Fold in the melted chocolate.
8. For the glaze, beat the sugar and espresso together, until sugar is dissolved.
9. To assemble, cut the cake horizontally into two halves. Spread the filling on lower half with a spatula and layer with top half. Drizzle over the espresso glaze and top with chopped walnuts.