Coffee and walnut cake

It has been a while since I last blogged about a recipe. I made this cake on Sunday for a friend's birthday at her request. Personally, I'm not a big fan of coffee, so have never attempted a coffee flavoured cake until now. But here it is! 

Ingrdients

• 150g self raising flour
• 120g+50g caster sugar in separate containers
• 5 large eggs, separated
• 80g unsalted butter
• 5 tsps instant coffee granules
• 4 tbsps boiling water
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract 
• 40g finely chopped walnut+extra for decoration
• 350ml double cream
• 2 tbsps icing sugar 

1. Dissolve coffee with boiling water and set aside to cool
2. Heat butter until melted and set aside to cool for 30-40 minutes
3. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C and grease a 23cm round cake tin
4. Mix flour, chopped walnut and 120g sugar
5. Add melted butter, egg yolks and 2 tbsps of coffee essence to flour and sugar and mix until it is a dropping consistency (you may need to add 10-20ml of water at this stage)
6. Beat egg whites in a separate bowl with electric whisk and add remaining sugar a little at a time until the egg white has formed soft peaks
7. Mix in 1/4 of egg whites  and fold in the rest into the cake mix
8. Pour cake mix into tin and bake for 55-65 minutes
9. Test with a clean skewer and it should come out clean
10. Let cake cool slightly in tin for 5 minutes and take it out to cool
11. Whip double cream until thick and add in remaining coffee essence to the cream along with icing sugar, if it is not sweet enough, add another tsp of icing sugar
12. Slice cake horizontally into two and fill with 1/3 of coffee cream
13. Spread remaining coffee cream over the rest of the cake and decorate with walnut and chocolate as desired.