Easy Coffee Flavored Cake with Coffee Buttercream Frosting

❤️Why you will love this recipe

• The recipe makes a superbly moist and fluffy cake.
• This is basically a butter cake flavored with real coffee. It has a soft and firm texture, and is not only suitable for stacking but is awesome for carved cakes too.
• This cake is good to be eaten on its own and is equally delicious when covered in icing particularly coffee flavored buttercream icing or any chocolate flavored icings.
• The cake stays soft and moist for a good 4 to 5 days at room temperature.

Cake

• Self-raising flour + salt + baking powder - mix these together and sift them before adding into the cake batter.
• Granulated sugar (caster sugar) - works best for cakes. Coarse sugar will leave the top of the cake with visible sugar specks after baking.
• Butter - I use salted butter. If using unsalted butter, add an extra one eighth of a teaspoon of fine salt to the recipe. Increase the salt accordingly for larger cakes.
• Eggs - Use large eggs.
• Milk - I like to use whole milk for a rich cake.
• Instant coffee powder - must be soluble in water.
• Hot water - this is to dissolve the coffee powder.

Coffee Buttercream

• Powdered sugar (icing sugar) - sift first to break any lumps.
• Butter - similar to the cake, I use salted butter in making buttercream. It definitely enhances the taste of the buttercream and I strongly encourage salted butter.
• Shortening - this helps stabilize the buttercream especially in warm climates.
• Instant coffee powder - must be soluble in water.
• Hot water - to dissolve the coffee powder.

Decoration

• Coffee flavored chocolate chips - these are optional and are purely for decoration.

🧾Substitution and variations

• Self raising flour can be substituted with all purpose flour and baking powder. For every 225g of self raising flour, replace with 225g of all purpose flour and one and a half teaspoons of baking powder. Mix well and sift three times before using. For the recipe below, to make 360g of self raising flour, mix 360g of all purpose flour and two and half teaspoons of baking powder.
• Instant coffee powder can be substituted with instant espresso powder. You can also use strong-brewed coffee in place of the coffee powder, but it must be concentrated and the total liquid should not be more than indicated in the recipe. Brewed coffee is not recommended for the frosting.
• Granulated sugar can be replaced with brown sugar, but the brown sugar should not be coarse. Use in the exact same quantity as the white sugar.
• To make a coffee bundt cake, half the recipe below and bake the cake in a 6 cups capacity bundt tin at 160 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes. Make sure to not fill the tin all the way until it is full. Leave approximately one third space for the cake to rise without overflowing.
• Buttercream frosting can be replaced with cream cheese frosting or chocolate ganache. Both frosting will work great with this coffee cake.
• Shortening in the buttercream can be replaced with butter to make all-butter buttercream.

Mixing the cake batter

• Start by mixing instant coffee with hot water until the coffee is dissolved. Set the coffee mixture aside to cool down.

1. Next, add butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat until light and fluffy at high speed on an electric mixer. This should take a good 2 minutes (for the recipe measurement below).
2. Add in the eggs, one at a time. Beat well and make sure all traces of the eggs are no longer visible before adding more.
3. After that, fold in the sifted flour (dry ingredients) and alternate this with the milk.
4. Start with the flour and end with flour.
5. Finally, mix in the coffee solution. Give the batter a good mix to make sure the coffee is well distributed.
6. Pour the coffee flavored cake batter into prepared tins (greased and flour or lined with parchment paper).

• Bake the cakes at 170 degrees Celsius for 40 to 45 minutes, until the cakes are done. Test with a skewer in the center at least 5 to 10 minutes before the baking time is up. Ideally, the skewer should come out with a few moist crumbs (not wet crumbs).
• Remove the cakes from oven, let them rest in the tins for about 2 minutes and then turn them out onto wire rack to cool completely before frosting. Use a butter knife to run through the sides of the cake and the side for easy release.
• If you do not intend to decorate the cakes immediately, cover them with cling wrap (plastic wrap) as soon as they turn warm. Keep them refrigerated until ready to be frosted or served.

Making the coffee buttercream

1. I used a combination of shortening and butter in making the coffee buttercream. To start with, add instant coffee and hot water into a small cup. Stir to dissolve the coffee. Let the coffee mix cool completely and then add into a mixing bowl. Measure and add butter and shortening to the bowl. Cream these with a hand mixer or a stand mixer until they turn light and creamy. Start with low speed and gradually increase to medium-high speed.
2. Sift in the powdered sugar and beat until the buttercream is all smooth and creamy. If it is too stiff, you can add some cream or milk.
3. Start by layering each cake into 2 (click here to see the many ways you can layer a cake).
4. Place the first layer on a serving plate or cake board and top with some buttercream. Top with the second layer and repeat until all the cake layers are filled with the coffee buttercream.

Assembling and decorating the cake layers

1. Give the stacked cake layers a thin crumb coat and chill it for about 15 minutes.
2. Apply another layer of coffee buttercream and smooth it all around. For the embossed design on the cake, I used my kitchen towels. The had a lovely pattern on them and worked well for the cake. To emboss the pattern, place the kitchen towel smoothly on the surface of the coffee frosting. Use your fingers to very gently rub the pattern on the buttercream (or use a fondant smoother).
3. Carefully peel off the kitchen towel and repeat the process until the whole cake is covered with the embossed design including the top of the cake.
4. For the polka dots design, I used coffee-flavored chocolate chips. Place the cake on a decorating mat that has gridlines on it. This helps in guiding the placement of the chocolate chips. Start by placing them in vertical lines on the sides of the cake. And then fill more in between these to complete the polka dots design.

And here is the completed coffee flavored cake with coffee buttercream:

🍽️Serving & storage

• This cake can be served on the very same day it is baked, even while it is still warm (without any frosting). It is also equally good when baked in advance and stored in the fridge until it is ready for use, within one week. To store the cake in the fridge, once it is baked and has cooled down to a warm temperature, wrap it tightly with cling wrap and refrigerate.
• Leftovers of this cake can be stored at room temperature for a good 4 to 5 days provided it is handled without any moisture. Always ensure the knife used to cut the cake is all dry and the container you intend to store the cake has no traces of water in it.
• The leftovers can last up to one week if refrigerated (in an airtight container to prevent it from drying). If you wish to use this coffee flavored cake for carving, it is best left to rest for at least one day after baking for the texture to stabilize for easy carving with fewer crumbs.

💡Expert tips

• Adding coffee to the cake batter
  • If you are using instant coffee, you need to dissolve the granules with some hot water first. Never add the coffee directly into your cake batter or you will end up with undissolved specks of coffee in the batter.
  • There are 2 ways in which you can mix the coffee into this coffee flavored cake. Both methods start with the creaming of butter and sugar, followed by the eggs. In the first method, the coffee is dissolved with hot water and mixed into the milk. This is then added into the cake batter alternately with flour. This is the method I have used.
  • The other method is to mix the coffee powder with hot water, let it cool to room temperature, and then fold it into the cake batter right after all the flour and milk have been added in. Both methods will yield the same results and it is up to you to choose your preferred way.
• This cake is called a coffee flavored cake for a reason, so the type of coffee you use is important. I use instant coffee in my recipe and I find this better compared to filtered or brewed ones. It is hard to gauge the thickness of coffee in the filtered coffee so the results can vary every time you make this cake. With instant coffee, the coffee taste in the cake is more consistent.
• If you intend to make cakes larger than 10 inches in diameter, I would strongly suggest that you use cake strips or a heating core. These will prevent the sides of the cakes from drying out due to longer baking time for larger cakes. See my post here on how to achieve leveled cakes to learn more about using cake strips and heating cores.
• Tips for a moist cake
  • Check if the cake is done at least 5 to 10 minutes before the baking time is up by inserting a long skewer in the center of the cake. If the skewer comes out without any wet batter sticking to it, the cake is done and can be removed from the oven. Also, when the cake is done, the sides will pull away from the tin.
  • Another tip is to wrap the baked coffee cake with plastic wrap while it is still warm and refrigerating it for about 4 to 5 hours (or even overnight). This locks and distributes the moisture in the cake making it perfectly moist after refrigeration. When you need to use it, remove the cake from the fridge and with the cling wrap still intact, let it warm up to room temperature. Remove the wrapping only after the cake has reached room temperature to prevent condensation on the cake.

💭FAQs