Boozy Hazelnut and Coffee Cake

Cake and booze. Two of my favourite things in one. And I love the excuse to experiment. So when I was sent separately not just some fresh coffee beans to try, but also a coffee liqueur, an idea popped into my head.

Cake.

I had to. With a little research. a little playing around (ok a lot – I had to get it right), I have a coffee and hazelnut cake recipe that’s really rather good. But please, try it, make it yourself and let me know what you think.

The coffee I used is from a company called Carvetii Coffee based in the Lake District. They sent me a bag of their absolutely divine (and gone far too fast) seasonal Espresso blend, with the most gorgeous fruity, dark chocolate flavours and a hint of earthiness. It sounded like such a perfect match for hazelnuts, I just couldn’t help myself.

The liqueur is Toussaint coffee liqueur, which I first sampled at the Spirit Boutique at the Corn Exchange. This has a rum base, meaning it’s sweet, but with good toffee and chocolate flavours, making it the perfect match for the coffee.

And then, believe it or not, after one of the test bakes went slightly awry (before a WI meeting no less) I added a last minute fudge frosting. I’ll keep this as an optional extra, but needless to say the WI were more than impressed and the cake disappeared rather quickly.

They’ve even asked for the recipe.

So without further ado:

Boozy Hazelnut and Coffee Cake

Ingredients for the cake

170g butter, cubed, at room temperature

170g golden caster sugar

3 medium eggs

150g chopped hazelnuts (I like the texture these give the cake, rather than using ground)

190g self-raising flour (as ever, I’ll highly recommend Sainsbury’s sponge flour)

125ml freshly brewed strong coffee, cooled

Ingredients for the drizzle

300g dark brown sugar

200 ml Toussaint Liqueur

100 ml fresh coffee.

Preheat oven to 170°C (Gas Mark 3).

Grease and line a 20 cm cake tin.

Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy and pale.

Add the eggs, one at a time and mix through, then stir in the hazelnuts.

Sift the flour into the bowl a third at a time and stir until combined.

Then stir in the cooled coffee. The batter should be a good ‘dropping’ consistency. The cake is going to end up relatively dense, but we want that. That way it can soak up the syrup.

Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in the oven for around 45-55 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

In the meantime, while the cake is baking it’s time to make the syrup. Take the ingredients, add them to a saucepan and put on the heat.

Stir until the sugar completely dissolves and the mixture comes to the boil. Boil, gently, until the mixture becomes nice and syrupy. Take off the heat and put to one side.

When the cake is done, remove from the oven and, while still in the tin and still warm, poke with a skewer until there are lots of little holes in the cake. This is so that the syrup will soak through into the cake.

Then, tablespoon by tablespoon, soak the syrup into the cake. It will smell heavenly and look delicious and sticky.

Now you have two choices.

Either leave the cake to cool and make the frosting detailed below. Or, stuff it, cut slices and eat while warm and sticky.

If you’ve chosen the frosting, the recipe is below. I used a very dark Muscovado sugar and a brown icing sugar, resulting in a fudgy sticky frosting. You could even add a little cocoa and make it chocolatey too.

Brown Sugar Frosting

Ingredients

110g butter

220g dark brown soft sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons milk

350g sifted icing sugar

Melt the butter in a pan and then stir in the dark brown soft sugar and the salt.

Bring to the boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and add the milk, stirring all the while.

Return to heat and bring to the boil again.

Remove from hob and cool to room temperature.

Stir in the icing sugar and beat til fluffy and smooth.

Cover cake in frosting.

Hmm. Sticky.