Coffee cake.. my first self-made recipe(sort of)

After baking a few cakes and reading so many recipes, I decided to try and bake a cake without following any recipe or directions, and coming up with the amounts on my own, based loosely on the proportions used in the various cake recipes ive done. So.. the end result was my coffee cake!

Heres the nicest shot of it I got all day, most of the others are boring ones where the cake is in the tin and stuff like that. Its just a basic coffee cake, with added Kahlua ( thanks to my bro for the idea of putting kahlua in, really makes the taste loads better), and its supposed to have a center layer of coffee frosting as well as all round the cake, but I only had enough for a thin layer in the centre and on top ( more on what happened later )

Anyway, I am not sure if I have an accurate taste test since I had to put it in the fridge before the frosting started to melt due to the extremely hot weather today, and so I ate the cake while it was just out of the fridge awhile later. Well, the cake is edible, has quite a nice coffee flavor, and the frosting has just the right sweetness. But, there isint enough frosting on it to be nice, and Im not sure if its coz of the fridge, or my baking, the cake isint soft enough and the texture is a little tough, compared to the soft and moist aim I had, I'll need to try it again tomorrow when it has time to settle to normal temperature just to know what it really tastes like

Well, what happened with my frosting was that I made a first batch that was quite good, but I unknowingly left it in the open and the cream started to curdle ( Sigh.. its been getting hotter and hotter each day) So.. I had a whole wasted batch of frosting, and I had to make a second one, but... I was almost out of icing sugar, so I just made as much as I could and tried my best to frost the cake ( unsuccessfully)

It was great fun making this cake anyway, especially since it was like working blind, I kept worrying that I did something wrong on every step and that the final result i put in will just be a lump of coal ( or something similar ) So Im quite pleased it actually turned out edible. I really dont know if what i ended up putting into the cake was what I had initially planned to when I worked out the recipe in my head, but here it is anyway. ( As much as I can remember or measured)

Coffee cake :
200g cake flour

2tsp baking powder

2 eggs

200g castor sugar

110g butter

1.5 tsp vanilla essence

100ml milk

Mixture of concentrated coffee ( dissolve in hot water and let cool) and Kahlua ( I really have no idea how much I put in, I mixed up until it didnt taste too bitter and I could taste the Kahlua and the Coffee together, then just keep adding it to the batter until it turned a light brown)

Frosting :

150g Icing Sugar

2-3 tbsp Cream

50g Butter

Coffee and Kahlua mixture

The steps are really easy, firstly, cream the butter with an electric mixer for about 1-2 minutes, then add the castor sugar and continue to cream until fluffy ( 3-5 more minutes) Next, add eggs 1 by 1, beating well after each addition, and then add the vanilla essence and the coffee and mix it all in ( add the coffee bit by bit, and stop when the batter turns a nice light brown)

Next, Sift the flour and baking powder together, then add the flour and milk to the batter in 5 seperate additions ( flour,milk,flour,milk,flour) For some reason, you have to start and end with flour, then mix gently after each addition,just enough to incorporate em together.

Pour it into a greased cake tin and put into the oven at 180 degrees for about 1 hour, until the sides start to pull back from the in and a wooden stick comes out clean when inserted into the centre.

For the frosting, what I did was simply mix all the ingredients together with an electric mixer, going slowly from low to high speed, and adding more coffee to taste, and more cream when I wanted it smoother. Have to improvise abit here, just keep tasting the frosting until you get the taste you want. ( Dont leave it out in our warm weather! or the cream will curdle)

At the end, all I did was cut the cake in half after it cooled, let it cool slightly longer, then add a layer of frosting in the middle and a layer on top. Ta-Da

Omg.. such a long post, and I doubt people will even care about my recipe, but, I kinda made it myself, so I feel a desire to post it online, hopefully more will come.

Ok, here are the random pics i have for the day

This is my workstation after I was half done with my cake.

And heres the cake after taking out of the pan and cutting it along the sides =)