Coffee and Almond Cake

My streak of bad luck with birthday cakes is finally over.  My last two birthday cakes for friends had been disasters. 

Let's first admire my latest success -- a simple coffee and almond cake from Jamie Oliver.

 It was originally a coffee and walnut cake, but I like almonds more.  I didn't get to eat it actually, I had brought it to the birthday party but then had to leave early to attend another thing.

It's just a simple coffee flavored sponge cake with some ground almonds in it.  Then it's sliced in half, filled with frosting and then glazed with icing.

I got this from Jamie Oliver, and the title of the cake was "Best Ever Coffee Walnut Cake".  That was..well, I haven't had that many coffee cakes, so I wouldn't argue with the fact that it was probably one of the better coffee cake recipes around.  So it depends on what you like and whether or not you trust Jamie.

And then there was the cake I had made for my friend Jess' birthday.  Hah.  This was awhile ago.  I didn't even bother photoshop it or anything, there's no way of making this photo better.   To be fair, it wasn't this yellow, it was the lighting.

Yea it looks like it exploded.  With expired milk on top.  I'm not going to go into this.

And then I don't have photographic evidence for the other one. 

The other one was bad, it didn't rise, but the other one was so bad that it's actually funny.  What's your worst cake disaster?


Recipe adapted Jamie Oliver
Ingredients
Sponge
175g unsalted butter, cubed and softened, plus extra to grease
75g ground almonds
175g sugar
3 eggs, beaten
150g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
50ml cold espresso

Coffee Filling
65g butter
125g icing sugar
40ml strong espresso

Coffee icing
100g icing sugar
20ml strong espresso

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C

Grease and line the base of a cake tin. 

Cream the butter in a bowl with the sugar until light and fluffy.  Gradually beat in the eggs then add the ground almonds and gently stir through

Fold the flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt through with a wooden spoon until just incorporated.

Stir in the espresso. 

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden/when a knife is inserted into the cake it comes out clean.

Leave the cake to cool and make the filling and icing. 

For the filling
Put the butter in a bowl.  Sift in the icing sugar and beat until fluffy, then beat in the coffee.

For the icing
 Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and beat in the coffee to make a thick, smooth icing

Cut the cake in half with a knife and spread on one half the coffee filling. Top with the other half and drizzle over icing.   You can smooth it over with a palette knife or with a spatula.  Sprinkle over some almonds if you wish.