Suzi's Blog
Coffee-Walnut Layer Cake [Except I Used Pecans] from Retro Cakes and Cookies
So darned good. I took one look at this cake, in Retro Cakes and Cookies by Wendy Sweetser, and I had to make it. Coffee flavor and nuts. Oh, this is an English recipe and they want walnuts. Suzen is not anti-English – she’d live in London – but she’s not a walnut fan. So I made this with pecans.
Compared to American recipes, there is a lot of coffee here. In the cake and Lord knows in that frosting. I used Italian espresso powder and just the amounts specified. I got the coffee tang, but it was not over the top. The cake is moist, filled with flavor and quite sweet.
Now, in the book, there is a picture of this cake and it is well frosted. So is my cake in my picture. And that is because I doubled the amount of frosting in the recipe below. So, you have an option. Go with frosting that is more of an icing, or go for the gold. Or the brown. Or whatever.
Jeez, just go for it.
And to serve with it? Well, what else. Espresso.
Personally, I would not eat this after 9 PM at night unless you have an exam in the morning.
That picture of the cake above is one I made by combing three exposures with the HDR software from NIK, plus their special vignette effect to tone the entire picture. I think that the picture style here matches the idea of a retro recipe.
Retro Cakes and Cookies is filled with recipes from the home kitchens of Great Britain in the 50’s and 60’s. There are things here you’ve never seen or heard of before. There are things here you need to taste.
I may have made a mistake in that last paragraph. This cake may be much older than just 50’s. Older than me, even. You’ll see in the section describing how to make the cake. You don’t cream the butter, add this, then that. Oh, no. You just put everything all at once in the bowl and mix. Everything. All at once. My grandmother would have made this cake.
I wish she had.
Coffee-Walnut Layer Cake
Yield: 1 3-layer cake
Ingredients:
For the cake:
- Oil or butter to grease 3 cake pans
- 2 sticks butter, softened
- 1 ⅛ cups superfine sugar
- 4 extra-large eggs
- 1 ¾ cups self-rising flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 2 tablespoon hot water, and cooled
- 1 cup chopped walnuts [or pecans!]
For the frosting [remember, you may want to double this]:
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter
- 2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 2 tablespoons hot water, and cooled
- Walnut [or pecan] halves to decorate
Preparation:
For the cake:
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease 3 8-inch layer cake pans and line the bottom with parchment.
Put the butter, sugar, eggs, self-rising flour, baking powder, and dissolved coffee in a large mixing bowl, and beat together with an electric hand mixer on low speed, or a wooden spoon, until smooth. Stir in the chopped walnuts.
Divide the mixture between the pans, spreading it in even layers and leveling the tops. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until risen and springy to the touch. Leave the cakes to cool in the pans for 5 minutes, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
For the frosting:
Beat the butter until soft and creamy. Gradually sift in the confectioners’ sugar, beating well after each addition. Add the dissolved coffee after three quarters of the sugar has been added.
Sandwich the cake layers with some of the buttercream, and spread the remainder on top. Decorate with a ring of walnut [or pecan] halves.
Source: Retro Cakes and Cookies by Wendy Sweetser [published by CICO Books]
Juliet’s Kisses from Michele Scicolone
“Too big.” I said. I know what I am talking about.
“They’ll be fine,” Suzen countered.
I bit my tongue. I waited. They baked. They cooled. Suzen made the filling and began to assemble these sandwich cookies.
“Too big,” she said.
I said nothing. I just picked up “a half” and ate it very pleasantly without the filling. It’s all to easy to become a tad exuberant when you bake these cookies. A simple teaspoon of dough seems too little so you add more and pretty soon each “half” of the sandwich cookie is just the right size just by itself.
I love these cookies so much that very often I will forgo the filling, decline to create sandwiches, and just enjoy the fragile beauty of a perfect kiss.
Our good friend and fabulous cookbook author Michele Scicolone created these sandwich cookies a long time ago. Suzen bakes them often as just the perfect end-of-meal treat. These cookies are breathtakingly soft — thanks in part to the cornstarch in the confectioners’ sugar. By the time you put two of them together with filling, you have a cookie that requires you “open wide.”
The secret to making this cookies just perfect is the butter. Try to find a good French or European butter that is rich in fat. Certainly, an upscale cocoa is important, too.
The downside to this cookie is its interaction with air. They appear to frequently just evaporate spontaneously. Just like those news stories you see about people dying from spontaneous combustion in the National Enquirer. I believe those stories. Suzen is skeptical about the fires and totally believes that some human being is responsible for the surreptitious disappearance of these cookies.
I am an innocent man.
Juliet’s Kisses
Yield: 48 cookies
Ingredients:
For the cookies:
- ½ pound [2 sticks] unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted
- ½ cup finely chopped toasted almonds
For the filling:
- 2 ounces semisweet chocolate
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/3 cup blanched almonds, toasted and finely chopped
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the salt and vanilla. On low speed, beat in the flour, cocoa, and almonds just until blended.
Roll teaspoonfuls of the dough into ¼ inch balls. Place the balls about 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake the cookies until firm but not browned, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool.
To make the filling, in a small heatproof bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, combine the chocolate and butter, and heat until softened. Removed from the heat and stir until smooth. Stir in the almonds.
To assemble kisses as a sandwich cookie, spread about 1 teaspoon of the chocolate mixture on the bottom on one cookie. Place a second cooking bottom side down on the filling and press together lightly. Place on a wire rack until the filling is set. Repeat with the remaining cookies and filling.
