Coffee cake

It’s quite extraordinary how prospects of intense revision sessions, early nights and hearty countryside walks can turn into a bowl full of flour, a couple of cracked eggs and a Coffee Cake in a blink of an eye.

Revision during holidays never works.

I think I should stop pretending it does to save myself the pain of procrastination (for those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, it is defined as: the painful putting off of work until the last minute. Usually involving videos of sloths on Youtube and Facebook stalking).

If I entered the Easter holidays under no pretenses that work would actually get done, i wouldn’t be quite so dissapointed that i’m sitting here, dangerously close to exam season, still youtubing videos of sloths and crying over my inability to revise. Oh, being a 21st century student is so hard. Why couldn’t I have been born twenty years earlier, when the internet as we know it was but a twinkle in some inventor’s eye and a night in with the Encyclopedia Britannica (may it rest in peace) sounded like a good idea.

Well anyway, where there there’s a looming exam, there’s procrastinating baking! So over the holidays I have been rather busy in the kitchen, especially what with it being Easter and all. I never quite made it onto hot cross buns, but i did manage to rustle up a simnel cake which saw the light of day for a total of 24 hours before it was demolished by the family. I’m taking that as a good sign.

I also made a coffee cake using my trusty Mrs Beeton recipe – the basis of my  go-to chocolate cake cake recipe. Just replace the cocoa powder with flour and add 1tbsp coffee granules dissolved into 1tbsp boiling water to the batter. Also, instead of caster use light brown sugar. I used a mascarpone icing, which basically consisted of a tub of mascarpone whipped with light  brown sugar and strong coffee. I’m afraid I have no measurements for you, but just add the coffee and sugar to taste. Walnuts would also be wonderful on top, but as my family shun nuts in any form, I had to sacrifice those.

This is a wonderfully moist cake and the mascarpone icing makes it so much lighter than the butter cream variety. Delightful!

Other than baking I’ve spent my Easter in the company of good friends; accidentally giving away other people’s secrets while playing Articulate and recreating old Russian Easter cheese-based delicacies. So all in all a very good holiday has been had, let’s just not mention revision…I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow…