Coffee Cake

Coffee Cake is believed to first have been made in Germany, however, this one is made with a mascarpone cream, making it attributable to Italy. Coffee cake wasn’t really invented, it was derived from other cakes. Mascarpone is originally from Italy and even got nominated the P.A.T. (Prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale or “traditional regional food product”) by the Italian government. This cake is made with a soft biscuit cake base and coffee flavoured mascarpone cream. It tastes similar to Tiramisu but is slightly heavier. It can be enjoyed whenever though it is best served cold so the cream doesn’t melt.

Recipe

Ingredients

Biscuit Cake (notes)

• 6 Eggs
• 100g Flour
• 120g Cornstarch
• 200g Sugar
• 4Tbsp hot Water
• 1 1/2 Tbsp Instant Coffee

For the soaking

• A cup of cold black coffee (notes)

Mascarpone cream

• 500g Mascarpone
• 800g Heavy cream
• 4Tbsp Icing Sugar
• 4tsp Instant Coffee
• 2Tbsp hot Water

Instructions

1. Beat the eggs until they have become fluffy.
2. Sift in the cornstarch, flour and sugar.
3. Make sure to mix well with an electric mixer to avoid clumps.
4. Integrate the instant coffee into the hot water before adding it into the batter.
5. Preheat the oven to 180ºC
6. But baking paper into a cake form and butter it.
7. Fill batter into the cake form.
8. Bake the cake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean.
9. Once the cake is done, take it out of the oven and use a long bread knife to cut it into three layers.
10. Leave the layers to cool while you prepare the mascarpone cream.
11. Use an electric mixer to mix the mascarpone and the heavy cream together.
12. Sift the icing sugar into the cream and mix well.
13. Separate the cream in two.
14. Mix the coffee into one of the halves.
15. Put the cream into the fridge for 30 minutes or until it is solid enough to be piped.
16. Place the cream into a piping bag with a round nozzle.
17. Use a baking brush to soak the cake base with the black coffee.
18. Pipe circles or spirals in both colours on the cake.Cool the cream before decorating the cake.

19. Place the creams into piping bags with star nozzles and pipe the decorations.
20. Pipe the top in circles changing the colours.
21. For the side, start piping from the bottom and pull the piping bag up without lifting the bag to form the pattern of the white cream in the image below.

22. Place the cake in the fridge for several hours or until serving.

Notes

Biscuit cake: This is a tricky type of cake. It is easy to get something wrong. In fact, I have had huge trouble with it before. Sometimes it is not completely done in the middle. So make sure to do the toothpick trial exactly in the centre and don’t take the cake out too soon. If you take it out and put it back in too many times, it will collapse and become dry. Make sure the eggs are correctly beaten so you get the right texture. It should be fluffy on the inside.

Coffee: There is a distinct difference in the taste of instant coffee versus a good blend. This coffee’s main taste is coffee. So it is important to use a good coffee for the soak. Instant coffee is best for cream or the cake itself but I much prefer using coffee made with a coffee machine rather than instant coffee for the soak. It has a stronger more distinct taste to it.