Ingredients
- walnuts 100g
- golden caster sugar 140g
- milk 3 tbsp, heated
- instant coffee granules 2 tsp
- salted butter 100g, softened
- walnut oil 2 tbsp
- eggs 2
- self-raising flour 75g
- plain wholemeal flour 75g
- bicarbonate of soda ½ tsp
- unsalted butter 350g, softened
- icing sugar 400g
- cocoa powder 2 tbsp
- instant coffee granules 2 tbsp (mixed with 4 tbsp boiling water to dissolve)
- vanilla extract 1 tsp
Method
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Step 1
Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with muffin cases. Put the walnuts in a food processor with about half the sugar and whizz until very finely chopped (like ground almonds).
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Step 2
Mix the milk and coffee to dissolve the coffee (if it needs some help, pop it in the microwave for a few seconds).
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Step 3
Tip the walnut-sugar mix, remaining sugar, milky coffee, soft butter, oil, eggs, flours and bicarb into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric whisk until smooth. Divide between the cases then bake for 18 minutes, or until golden and risen, and a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then lift the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.
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Step 4
For the icing, put the butter in a big mixing bowl and beat for about 5 minutes until very pale and creamy. Sift in the icing sugar and cocoa then add the coffee and vanilla and beat for another 3-5 minutes until very fluffy.
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Step 5
To decorate, put the icing into a large piping bag fitted with a star nozzle – for our ruffle icing, we used a Wilton 2D nozzle (from lakeland.co.uk). Pipe swirls of icing on top of each cake, then leave to set for 20 minutes before eating.
Nutritional Information
- Kcals 598
- Fat 39.4g
- Saturates 20.5g
- Carbs 55.2g
- Fibre 1.7g
- Protein 4.7g
- Salt 0.4g
