Ingredients

180g Plain Flour

90g Dark Brown Sugar

95g Golden Caster Sugar

1/4 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1/2 Tsp Salt

40g Unsalted Butter

50g Chopped Walnuts (around 2cm big)

1/4 Tsp Cinnamon

1 - 1 1/2 Tbsp Coffee Powder depending on taste**

100g Full Fat Milk

70g Veg/Sunflower Oil

50g Sour Cream

2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 Tsp White Wine/Cider Vinegar

100g Egg White

1 Egg Yolk

Method

This makes 1 6”x 3” Deep cake. For more layers just multiply by as many as you need.

Fully line your cake tin, sides too.

Pre heat your oven to 160C/140CFan/320F/Gas3

Begin by separating your eggs, make sure you clean out your egg white bowl with lemon juice or vinegar, to cut through any grease. We have other recipes where you can use the spare egg yolks or you can freeze them.

Weigh out your sugars and then remove 2 tablespoons from it, to stabilise the egg whites. Begin whipping your egg whites and when it becomes foamy, sprinkle the sugar in slowly whilst the mixer is still going. The sugar will help to stiffen the egg white, they will be done when they hold their own form, or you can turn it upside down and not decorate your floor!!!! Set this to one side.

To the remaining sugars now add the flour, raising agents, cinnamon and salt, give these a mix together. Now place the “room Temp” butter on the top and mix on low, building up steadily, with the paddle attachment, until it resembles sand! I like sand so I’m sticking with that!!! To this sprinkle on the walnuts and whip them in, this will coat them, preventing them from sinking in the batter.

In a separate bowl add the coffee powder and full fat milk together, heat these in the microwave to pull out the coffee flavour. Now this is hot , so we need to cool it down, add the oil, sour cream, vanilla and vinegar to the mix and give it a good stir. Now it has cooled add in the egg yolk and pour this mix over the sandy mixture. Give this a good whip scraping down half way through, pulling the flour off the bottom of the bowl. Don’t over whip the mix a minute is plenty.

Ok time to fold in the egg white. Begin by taking a few spoonfuls and initially folding this in. Then you can pour in the rest, ensure you are folding, not stirring or whipping. this is the only way to protect all that air you worked so hard for!!(well the mixer did but hey we need some praise). This will take a few mins. When you can’t see those lumps of meringue anymore, it is time to pour the mix into the tin and bake.

This will take 55-60 minutes in the oven and when the skewer comes out clean, it’s all cooked. Crumbs are fine… it feels like this is my new slogan!!! Could I make a song out of it!!

**Ok let’s talk Coffee, so the general rule is if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t use it in the cake. I like to use a fine coffee powder, I find that they are smoother giving a much more luxurious flavour. You can also use espresso just remove the liquid content from the milk.