It's time for Part 5 of my selection of classic tray bakes and this one is definitely one of the nations favorites. It's the coffee and walnut tray bake! A combination that has been wowing people for years, you really can't beat this iconic pairing of flavors. I have added my own little twist though by decorating the top of my tray bake with some crushed chocolate coated coffee beans as opposed to the more traditional walnut halves. They add an amazing chocolaty crunch to the cake making it the perfect afternoon pick me upAs is tradition with these recipes you shouldn't really mess with the ingredients that much. It makes a delicious moist sponge I promise. What you can use if you like is coffee essence if you have any knocking around. It'll give the cake a stronger coffee flavor if you really are a coffee fan. I however prefer the more suitable coffee flavors of using some brewed coffee instead. I also think that unless you plan on making coffee cakes all the time then buying a bottle of coffee essence is pretty expensive if it's just going to sit in your cupboard for most of it's life. The choice however, is entirely yours!
You should be able to pick up some chocolate coated coffee beans in the sweet aisle of your supermarket or in specialist sweet shops which you can then crush to different sizes and sprinkle over the coffee icing. They are super crunchy, more so than walnuts and so they add a different dimension of texture to the cake as well as ramping up the coffee flavor. If you want to be more traditional you can simply decorate your cake with some walnut halves instead.
You should be able to get 20 - 24 squares out of the recipe below and once again for a tray bake recipe, it couldn't be more simple as you basically chuck all the ingredients for the cake into a bowl, beat and bake before making your icing. A perfect recipe for novices to get stuck into!
Coffee And Walnut Traybake
300g Softened Butter
225g Light Muscavado Sugar
275g Self Raising Flour
2 Tsp Baking Powder
4 Whole Eggs
2 Tbsp + 2 Tsp Milk
4 Tbsp Strong Black Coffee
100g Chopped Walnuts
225g Icing Sugar
Large Handfull Crushed Chocolate Coated Coffee Beans
- Begin by placing your oven on to 180 degrees (160 fan) and grease and line a large deep sided baking tray roughly 25cm squared with baking paper.
- Add 225g of the butter, light muscavado sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs, 2 tbsp of the milk. 2 tbsp of the coffee and the chopped walnuts and beat until a smooth, well combined batter has formed.
- Pour
the batter into the baking tray and level the top with a spatula before
placing in the oven to bake for 35-40 minutes until the cake is firm on
top and is coming away from the sides of the tray. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before removing the cake from the baking tray.
- When the cake is cool, make the coffee icing by beating together the remaining butter, milk and coffee with the icing sugar until a smooth spreadable icing has formed.
- Leave the icing in the fridge for a few minutes to firm slightly before spreading over the top of the cooled cake. Sprinkle over the crushed chocolate coffee beans to finish.
Cut the tray bake up into roughly 20 equal sized delicious squares, brew yourself a good pot of the finest coffee and prepare to enjoy this decadent afternoon treat. There are lots of things going on here that all work really well. You start with the crunch of the chocolate coated coffee beans as you bite through the soft and buttery icing flavored with even more coffee. The coffee sponge is soft and moist with little bites of chopped walnuts running right through it, it really is a caffeine lovers paradise. You'd be nuts not to give it a whirl.
Not a coffee fan? Why not try these tray bakes instead;
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