Brazil Nut Espresso Cake

Dear Readers, 

I had promised you a complex Saturday Brazil nut extravaganza grace a Dan Lepard, however, I changed my mind! I *am* still delivering a coffee cake with brazil nuts, but I have decided to forego the Lepard inclusion of wholemeal flour and actual ground roasted coffee beans and have created my own version. This is a Brazil Nut Espresso Cake that can be made in an express Saturday fashion! 

 Follow the basic ingredients for a Victoria Sponge - ie weigh three (or four if you're after a super-huge cake) eggs in their shells and use that measurement to weigh out the same weight of butter, caster sugar and self raising flour. Then make an espresso and have your roughly chopped brazil nuts and vanilla extract at the ready! (I held four brazil nuts back for decoration and used 75g of nuts in total!)

Beat the butter til its pale, then add the sugar and cream together. Crack in the eggs one by one and beat in thoroughly (add a tablespoon of self raising flour if the mix looks as if it's going to curdle).

Make your espresso and beat it in along with a teaspoon or so of vanilla. Then fold in your self raising flour with a large silver spoon, followed by the roughly chopped brazil nuts, and put into two greased and lined Victoria Sponge tins. Bake in the oven at 170 fan assisted for about thirty minutes - top should be golden and springy when it's ready and the cake should be moving away from the sides of the tin. Or insert a skewer and it should come out with a few crumbs stuck to it if the cake's ready. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, make the coffee flavoured buttercream icing! I swear by the ratio of 100g butter to 300g golden icing sugar, about one tablespoon or so of espresso and a dash of vanilla. Beat the butter in a bowl then add the icing sugar, begin to beat in (reserving a little icing sugar in the bowl) before adding the espresso and vanilla. The liquid makes it much easier to beat together, but keep testing as you beat more icing sugar in as you should make the icing to your own taste.

When the cakes are cool, use about half the buttercream to sandwich them together and the other half to ice the top of the cake. ICING TIP: I always start by dolloping small amounts of icing around the circumference of the 'base cake' so that you have the illusion of extremely thick icing and then use a spatula to spread it across the rest of the cake base. When icing the 'top cake', follow the same idea but in reverse ie work from the inside of the cake outwards. Does that make any sense??

Et voila! A Brazil Nut Espresso Cake in express time! To decorate, I shaved the held-back brazil nuts and scattered them around the edge along with some shaved dark chocolate to give the look of the crema on top of an espresso!

One more day to go!!
Silver Whimsy x