A tea cake for coffee lovers! A simple and beautiful cake with a host of flavours provided by the coffee, cinnamon, and dark brown sugar, and crunchy walnuts. I prefer to have it warm, and goes well with a nice cup of coffee or tea!

You need –

• All purpose flour – 1  & 1/3 cups
• Baking powder – 1 & ¼ teaspoons
• Instant coffee powder – 2 tablespoons
• Ground cinnamon – 1 teaspoon
• Dark brown sugar – 220 grams
• Unsalted butter – 125 grams
• Whole milk – ½ cup
• Eggs – 2
• Toasted walnuts – 125 grams, Chopped

For the icing-

• Icing sugar – 1/2 tablespoons
• Hot water – 2- 3 teaspoons
• Butter – ¼ teaspoon

How to –

Pre-heat the oven to 160 C.  Grease and line a 9×5 loaf pan.

In a sauce pan, add the butter, sugar, milk and coffee powder. Now over a low heat, stir until the butter has melted. Turn the heat off.

In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon. Beat the eggs well in a small bowl and add it to the flour. Stir in the butter mixture and chopped walnuts (reserving a few nuts for garnishing). Gently fold the mixture till well combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes. Now remove the loaf and top the loaf with with reserved walnuts and back into the oven for another 30-35 minutes or till the toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle of the loaf.

Cool the loaf for 10 minutes in pan and then on a wire rack.

While the cake is cooling…

… Make the icing, In a bowl, add the sugar, butter and gradually add the hot water and mix until the icing comes to a thin consistency.

Once the cake is cooled,  drizzle the icing  over and let it stand until set.