back to life again ....on my new Joyous Pursuit with this Coffee Walnut Cake

It has been several months, no wait a minute, it's been one long year since my last post. Why the long break you ask ? Well I forgot to renew my yearly subscription to my previous blog site and thus lost it. To get it back Google wanted more money than I wanted to pay as a  penalty. So I just went on a hiatus for awhile until I decided that I really need to start posting my crafts and baked goodies again.  So I decided on a new domain name and I am alive again.  (Yes ! )

Coffee anyone? As much as we enjoy coffee, (though we drink a lot of decaf now) I wondered why I never thought of making a "coffee" cake ?! So this past weekend I decided to make amends (lol)
 One of my girlfriends posted a delicious looking Coffee and Walnut Cake and I wanted to try to make it for her. I went to the link to get the recipe, but the link required me to register with the website and I am like no I don't think so. I am not ready to do that. So I looked around for another recipe and found a few that I like. I tweaked the recipe in my own 'Joanne way' and came up with a modified recipe that I thought would work. The result was this nicely baked small Coffee Walnut cake that I finished this past Sunday morning. It is almost always really fun to try new recipes :)

Here are the ingredients & instructions: (note to self, the next time, I would cut down the recipe to 2 cups of flour and proportion the other ingredients accordingly for 3 x 6 inch cake)

cake:
2 sticks (1 cup) margarine at room temp
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 Teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 Large eggs
5 teaspoons instant coffee granules
1 tablespoon boiling water
1 cup milk
3 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup chopped walnuts

buttercream:
2 sticks (1 cup) room temperature butter
1/3 cup shortening
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
4 Teaspoons instant coffee granules
1/2 tablespoon boiling water
+ Extra walnuts for cake garnish

For the cake:
Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F

Prepare three 6-inch cake pans by lining each bottoms with parchment paper, set aside

In a large bowl fitted with a stand mixer or hand mixer cream margarine for 3-5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add in brown sugar and beat for an additional two minutes. Add in vanilla extract honey syrup until incorporated. Crack in one egg at a time, beating well after each addition.

Dissolve instant coffee granules in boiling water and beat into the dough mixture. In a large bowl measure all dry ingredients (flour + baking powder) and mix well. Add half of this dry mixture into wet sugar mixture. Alternating between milk and dry ingredients until everything is mixed and incorporated, *do not over mix. Remove from beater and gently fold in walnuts. Pour evenly into cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick is removed clean. Let cool for twenty minutes. Ring a knife around sides of cake pans and transfer to cooling racks for an additional thirty minutes until cooled. Trip dome tops if needed.

For the buttercream frosting:
In a large bowl fitted with a stand mixer beat butter, shortening and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. In a small bowl dissolve coffee granules with boiling water. Add coffee granule mixture and milk to butter and half of powdered sugar and beat well. Scrape down sides of bowl and add in the rest of the powdered sugar and beat until light and fluffy.

My cake assembly, um um..yikes! I have to admit I was a little rough on the edges, literally,  it was early on Sunday morning, with limited time, I had to rush as I had to get ready to leave for church, so the finishing touches were a little sloppy ;)  but that's Ok for how it turned out, .. Enjoy!