Coffee Pecan Cake

Happy Father's Day!! For those in NZ anyway. I had another day of cooking today starting with breakfast for my boyfriend's family (I promise he did help) which was a breakfast bake up made up of hash browns, baked beans, crumbled sausage and eggs, yum! Breakfast was really late so I had a light lunch of a recipe that I am so excited to have found, Chocolate Covered Katie's Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Milkshake!! My family assembled for an afternoon tea. Mum made some nice savoury scones and I made custard squares.

Anyway on to this cake. I think that everyone needs a decent coffee cake recipe and this one was awesome. It came from my awesome cake book and stayed beautifully moist. Coffee cakes are so versatile and are pretty much always appreciated (unless you don't like coffee, in that case all the more for me!)

Ingredients
175g self-raising flour
125g butter or margarine
175g caster sugar
1 Tbsp instant coffee powder or granules
2 large eggs
50g pecans, roughly chopped

1 tsp instant coffee powder or granules
1 tsp cocoa powder
75g butter, softened
175g icing sugar
Whole pecans to decorate

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.
2. Grease an 18cm cake tin and line with baking paper.
3. Sift the flour and put to one side.
4. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy.
5. Dissolve the coffee in 2 Tbsps hot water and allow to cool.
6. Lightly mix the eggs in with the coffee liquid.
7. Gradually beat into the creamed butter and sugar, adding a little sifted flour with each addition.
8. Beat in the rest of the flour and then fold in the pecans.
9. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until well risen and firm to touch.
10. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before taking it out to cool on a wire rack.
11. To make the icing, blend together the coffee and cocoa powder with enough boiling water to make a stiff paste.
12. Beat into the butter and icing sugar.
13. Cut to cooled cake in half lengthways.
14. Use half of the icing to sandwich the two halves together. Spread the rest of the icing on top of the cake.
15. Decorate with whole pecans to serve.