I am an excellent wife.
Actually that’s not true all of the time but on this particular occasion I excelled. I have been noticing that DH is not as keen on chocolate cake as he once was. It turns out that bought cake never lives up to my home-made cakes [insert smug grin here], and that his cake of choice when outside the perimeter of DG Manor is coffee and walnut.
Naturally I waited until he went to work after sharing this piece of information and whipped out my copy of the Great British Baking Book, bestowed upon me by the extraordinarily generous Fairy Godfather at Appliances Online. It gave me a reason to use my newly purchased Bundt tin so I was doubly happy to have a chance to whip up a cake, despite the continuing vagaries of the Oven of Doom.
The cake, as it turned out, wasn’t that exciting. I certainly need to work on my extraction-from-bundt-tin technique: the five pieces the cake came out in rather took away from the overall doughnut-shape of the cake.
But the icing! The icing was a revelation: smooth, creamy and decadently coffee-flavoured. You don’t just need to take my word for it either: Dimples couldn’t get enough of it either.
Given that the cake wasn’t that exciting, I haven’t bothered making one since, but the icing is practically in my hall of fame. My favourite combination to date has to be the last minute birthday cake for a friend. I used a Betty Crocker Devil’s Food Cake mix to make a rectangular cake then smothered it in a thick layer of icing.
The combination of dense chocolate and smooth creamy coffee should actually be outlawed, it’s that good. It barely lasted a day. And got me my Excellent Wife award!
Heavenly Coffee Icing
125g butter
300g icing sugar, sifted
3 tbsp instant coffee, dissolved into 2 tbsp boiling water and left to cool
4 tbsp cream (any that you have to hand)
- In a saucepan, melt the butter until it starts to bubble. You can keep going until the butter is golden brown, if you would prefer a stronger nutty flavour to your icing.
- Pour the butter over the sifted icing sugar, followed quickly by the strong coffee mix and the cream and beat well until the icing is smooth. Leave until the mixture has thickened (in warm weather it might need to be refridgerated) then use to decorate your cake.
This recipe will make enough to fill and ice a 20cm round cake.
Should you want to make a coffee and walnut cake, you can add 25g of chopped walnuts to the icing, and use walnut halves to decorate the cake.
I’m sharing the love around the blogosphere: something for the weekend
just made this icing and it stayed very liquid, had to add more icing sugar to thicken which diluted the coffee taste.
Made it last night and it’s delicious! Better than regular buttercream as the sugar melts in the butter and takes away that grainy texture of buttercream 🙂
Not sure how clockworkoren managed to curdle the recipe. It worked fine for me. Added some nuts to it as well. Yum!
oooo, nuts would be good Maryke. thanks for the comment!
Hi clockworkoren, I followed the recipe you made. It was great, complementary to Monde Specials Mocha Cake. Our group loved it!
so cool that you have helped each other out! Thanks for sharing.
I tried this icing recipe yet it failed using the amounts of ingredients shown here. The melted butter and the water in the coffee mixture (cooled down), causes the mix to curdle within an hour, and the butter oil then rises to the surface leaving one with an oily mortar, even after hours of chilling.
Also – and this could well be a cultural difference (Australia here) – there’s way too much icing sugar to offset the taste of the coffee.
I used the following – almost the same with a few slight changes:
125g butter
180g icing sugar
3 tbsp instant coffee, dissolved into 2 tbsp heated full cream milk left cool
4 tbsp cream
Cut the butter into tiny pieces and drop into a bowl containing the icing sugar (no need to sift as it will soon get whipped).
Using an electric mixer, blend the butter into the icing sugar until you have a soft even paste.
Pour the cold milk and coffee mix plus the cream into the butter and icing sugar paste and whip it again until all ingredients are blended.
Cool the paste in the fridge for 30 mins to an hour, and it’s ready to spread!
Thanx grandly for the idea though. =)
ClockWorkOren
PS: I also cut numbers out of paper, placed the die cuts onto the surface of the icing and shook finely powdered chocolate dust over the topping to give it the dusted cappuccino effect; let it sit on the icing until it had soaked it a little moisture and then carefully removed the die cut numbers to produce clean cut numerals on the surface – the age of my teenage daughter. 🙂
I’m sorry to hear that @ClockWorkOren. I’ve never had a problem, but as you say it is often the case that recipes don;t translate to different countries. Thanks for providing a helpful update. And the die-cut is such a great way of decorating a cake isn’t it? Do you have edible spray paint in Oz? Perfect for doing this!
this is truly fantastic!
It is utterly delicious Love it!
This really IS the BEST Coffee Icing! Made it tonigh with chocolate cupcakes….heaven in a bite! DELISH! Thank you for the recipe…..its a keeper 😉
You are so welcome Niki 😀
I think I might love you….. Mmmmmm!!
Thanks so much for linking up!
Oh yummmm. Totally drool-worthy. Paired with a chocolate cake – that does sound fabulous!
Oh Lisa- it is divine. A match made in heaven I think.
Say WHAT?!?! That looks incredible!!!! Bookmarking it. 🙂
Thanks Messy Missy- it does taste heavenly!
No kidding, it’s making my mouth water, too. How delicious!
Enjoy your day,
Marianne
Marianne- once you’ve tried it, you’ll be powerless to resist!
I am a coffee addict, but have never had coffee flavored icing.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe on my weekly linky party.
Glad you approve Crystal: I don’t think there should be anything that isn’t coffee flavourd at the moment: broken sleep, y’know!!
I may actually be drooling!
They are drool worthy, it’s true. Just writing about them makes me want to make/eat more.