This cake is made with freshly milled Crusoe grain. The beauty with fresh milling grain is that because the gluten hasn’t stabilised you can use bread wheats in place of cake flour and still get a lovely light cake. If you were to use an aged bread flour the higher protein level would make for a heavy cake. The freshly milled wholemeal flour adds a delicious bite to an already delicious cake.
Ingredients
4 large free range or organic eggs
240g soft butter
100g dark brown sugar
140g caster sugar
50g strong coffee
240g freshly milled wholemeal flour
5g baking powder
50g walnuts, broken into smaller pieces
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C, gas mark 4, 350F. Lightly grease and line two sandwich cake pans that measure 20cm.
Beat the butter until soft and whipped. Add the sugar and beat until soft, pale and mousse like. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well with each addition until the mixture is smooth. Fold in the coffee and the flour and baking powder. Fold in the walnuts. Split the batter evenly between the cake pans and level off. Bake in the centre of the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden and a skewer comes out clean. Place on wire racks to cool completely.
Ingredients for buttercream
This makes enough for a thin layer in the middle and top of the cake, if you want more then double up the recipe.
100g soft butter
50g dark brown sugar
50g icing sugar
25g strong coffee
Method for buttercream
Beat the ingredients together well until light and airy and use half the mixture to sandwich the two cakes together and the rest for the top. Decorate with walnuts if liked.
Learn more about using freshly milled flour here.
