It's just as well that I really love the house we are buying, as I don't think I will ever be able to deal with any of this lot again (In actual fact Mr H has done most of the contacting of them as there is a very real chance of me just wigging out, and we have to reserve this for emergency purposes).
In a further shitty turn of bad luck, our oven promptly imploded on itself a couple of weeks ago. In the middle of a roast dinner. Fortunately the meat was cooked, so roast spuds were replaced with mash and dinner was saved. This of course meant our poor landlord had to get a new oven. Not ideal when he has just sold the place, but from a purely selfish point of view I was pretty chuffed. So chuffed in fact that last Monday, whilst Mr H watched 'Useless Men On A Not Really Deserted Island With The Posh TV Survivalist' I made a coffee and walnut cake. This is a favourite of the husband, and actually mine. I don't like the cloyingly sweet type that granny's would make, but prefer the type that my mother makes, with exceptionally strong coffee. A small slice of this probably contains enough caffeine to have Andre The Giant buzzing his tits off for days, but that is how I like it. Diall the coffee down a bit if you wish. Pussies. I would actually prefer to keep the frosting to cake ratio in favour of cake. It's probably necessary to keep the cake from going too dry but for the most part I actually kind of hate frosting or icing of any description.
Ingredients
The Cake
4 eggs (probably large but tbh mine come from the butcher so aren't graded)
225g unsalted butter
225g caster sugar
210g self raising flour
75g walnut pieces
4-5 teaspoons instant espresso
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Milk
The Frosting
2 tablespoons instant espresso
Splash of double cream
150g softened unsalted butter
300g icing sugar
Walnut halves
Method
1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and frothy looking. I do this in my stand mixer, but a handheld electric whisk also works. Only do it by hand if you are some sort of insane masochist.
2. Add the flour, coffee powder and other dry ingredients, along with the eggs, and continue to mix.
3. Once incorporated, add some milk. This might be a tablespoon, or two, or more. You want the cake batter to have a dropping consistency (this means it falls off the spoon, duh).
4. Now, using a spoon, stir the walnuts in gently.
5. Divide mixture equally into two buttered and lined 20cm sandwich tins and bake for 20-25 mins at 180c. Clearly I should have told you at the beginning to preheat your oven, but I didn't.
6. Cakes are done once golden brown and springy to the touch, and now need cooling on a rack.
7. Once cooled, dissolve the coffee for the icing in just under a tablespoon of boiling water to make a paste.
8. When that has reached room temperature add to butter and icing sugar and whisk the living Christ out of it to incorporate. A splash of double cream helps toward the end to give you a better, smoother texture. Again, I use my stand mixer, you do need an electric whisk here at the very least, or you run the risk of lumps of unincorporated butter, which makes me boke.
9. Spread frosting on the cakes to sandwich them together and decorate the top in an artful fashion that screams Church Of England raffle.
10. Eat with a cup of tea whilst noisily protesting at computer programmers and media sales twats inexpertly killing animals for their supper for the purposes of television.
