FAMILY WEEKEND

It's been a lovely family sort of weekend.

On Saturday Sally, Tony and I flew to Sydney for  a quick visit to see Brett and Sarah.
We spent an enjoyable day catching up with them and had a lovely lunch not far from their comfortable home in an outer Sydney suburb.
Sydney turned on a lovely day for us and the beautiful harbour looked magnificent as we flew over it.

An impromptu Sunday morning family morning tea gave me the opportunity to try this Coffee Cake recipe given to me by my friend Ellen.

It is a great favourite with her grandchildren so that sounded like a good recommendation to me.

It's one of those great recipes where you put all the ingredients together in a bowl and beat it until it is just combined.

185g soft butter

185g caster sugar

185g SR flour

3 eggs lightly beaten

1 tabsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tabsp hot water

Spoon into a lined bar tin , smooth the top and cook for in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes ( you can turn down the oven to 160 C after about 30 minutes if the cake looks too brown)

Turn out onto a cake rack to cool ( funny dint from testing with a skewer !)

Next I toasted some flaked almonds.

Then mixed up some icing.

I used a teaspoon of instant coffee dissolved in a little hot water and a teaspoon of butter, then mixed that into a cup of sieved icing sugar.

That went on top of the cooled cake with the almonds pressed into the icing .

Looks pretty good doesn't it?

I managed to rescue this piece to photograph ...... but only just !

Verdict:  Nice moist cake with a good coffee flavour.

Next time I make it ( and I can see it becoming a favourite ) I will split it and put another layer of that lovely coffee flavoured icing in the middle.

We managed to assemble a quiche, gorgeous strawberry sponge and the coffee cake and then spent four hours chattering, eating the lovely food and drinking tea and coffee (with a couple of refills).

A very pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning.

Cheers.