Hiya! (been a few years since I shifted from London, but somehow the habit of saying ‘hiya’ remains) … In case you’re wondering where I had disappeared off to, was away on holiday in Italy – a dream destination for foodies like myself .. To give you a short recap, breakfast every morning was a delight for anyone with a sweet tooth as the Italians are quite big on desserts for breakfast. Unfortunately I only made use of that on the last day, as otherwise I just can’t get myself to eat so much sweet in the morning!! But don’t you worry, I was far from being ‘good’ on holiday as their gelato ice cream was impossible to resist (and everywhere you turned around to look!) As for the pizza’s, not only was I impressed with the texture of their thin crust pizza’s, but in love with the square pizza’s they serve! The fact one can choose the size of their own pizza slice, meant being able to taste more flavours without going overboard … My absolute favourite had to be the ‘potato pizza’ (which we had at an amazing place called ‘Alice’) and the ‘chicken kebab pizza’ (which was at a Halal place I managed to forget the name of, but promise to google it later!). Booked a ‘food tour’ as well which involved a pizza making class in a wooden burner (it only takes 3 minutes to bake a pizza in that!) which was loads of fun, particularly watching Mr. Bakealogue make his very first pizza ❤ … Tasting different kinds of bread as well as cheese (omg, the variety!) was also part of the tour which was a learning experience. So that was the food side of things in a nutshell.. I’m actually laughing to myself right now, as I re-read the post and feel like I did nothing but eat in Italy .. haha! It would only be fair to mention, given the great weather there, we walked to most places making sure those calories were burnt! 😉 Obviously there is a lot more to Italy than just the food, but won’t touch on that, as it is a food blog after all. 🙂
Walnut Coffee Cake
Coming back to today’s dessert, baked a ‘Walnut Coffee Cake with Coffee Buttercream Icing’. Got the cake recipe from a book called ‘A World of Cakes’ that was gifted to me by a friend. However, I have tweaked it a little bit to suit my own taste. The Coffee Buttercream Frosting is also entirely optional and was not mentioned as part of the original recipe. I personally thought it added a lot more flavour to the cake.
Ingredients for the cake:
All-Purpose Flour: 2 1/2 cups
Vegetable Oil: 1/2 cup
Unsalted Butter (melted): 1/2 cup
Sugar: 1 cup
Packed Brown Sugar: 1 cup
Eggs: 2
Vanilla Extract: 1 tsp
Baking Soda: 1 tsp
Salt: 1 tsp
Cinnamon: 1 tsp
Buttermilk: 1 cup
Chopped Walnuts: 1 cup Read the rest of this entry
