Coffee cake is a very old favourite of mine that I originally developed a love for thanks to it being a regular in my mother's baking repertoire. Over time, I've religiously stuck to a reasonably basic recipe on the principle that less is often more. That said, I was interested to try something different this time round and, consequently, turned to a recipe by James Martin's that sports an intriguing sounding cardamom and pistachio laced twist.
Getting stuck in to the recipe, everything was pretty straightforward up to the baking part where the sponge ended up taking far longer than the stated time. I should also say that the sponge slightly split in the middle and peaked making me wonder about the oven temperature.
Moving on to the filling, I'd probably say that I just slightly over whisked the cream but, then again, it was still a nice alternative to my usual coffee buttercream. Finally, the icing was easy and, together with the sprinkling of chopped pistachios, added a lovely finishing touch.
Taste-wise, I'll start with a couple of negatives. Firstly, the coffee flavour, whilst there in the background, was dominated by the cardamom. Secondly, I thought the slight extravagance of using pistachios in the cream filling was a bit wasted as their flavour didn't particularly come through. That said, on the positive side, treated as a cardamom cake, I thought this bake had its merits; the subtle coffee flavour lent a pleasant depth to the sponge whilst the creamy filling offset the injection of sweetness from the topping beautifully.
So, in summary, this cake looked alright and had a reasonably mature balance between sweet and savoury notes. Admittedly, the coffee element was largely lost on me but, thought more of as a cardamom cake, I think there's promise here.
ORIGINAL RECIPE
See here.
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