European Cake week on GBBO and I thought the Torta Princessa looked amazing, didn’t you? I would love to give it a go but described as the trickiest technical challenge ever put me off slightly. Maybe one to try when I don’t have a little helper baking along with me.

Instead I opted to bake a cake I first ate in France, but give it a little Dutch twist – walnut cake with speculoos frosting.

If you’ve never had speculoos biscuits before you have to try them. You know, the Lotus biscuits? Little thin sugary biscuits you get with your coffee in Holland. I love them and now you can get a spread made from the biscuits that’s a similar consistency to Nutella and oh so moreish. It’s very sweet so baking with it was tricky. I wanted to pair it with a not-too-sweet cake, which is why I went with this moist walnut cake that has bitter dark chocolate and a hint of coffee through it. Delish.

I have to apologise too if you’re blinking furiously at the screen wondering if you’ve got blurred vision. My camera is one sick camera at the mo and I had mass problems getting pics of this pesky cake. It didn’t affect the taste though, don’t worry.

Walnut Cake with Speculoos Frosting

Ingredients:
100g walnuts
100g dark chocolate
200g self raising flour
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
100ml double cream
50ml strong espresso coffee
50g softened unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
30g speculoos spread
50ml milk

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line the bottom of a 22cm springform tin.

Roughly break up the chocolate and put in a food processor with the walnuts and pulse until chopped but not powder.

In a large mixing bowl sift in the flour and add the sugar, eggs, vanilla essence, cream and espresso. Mix until just combined (I used electric hand beaters but you could use a whisk or even do it all in the food processor if you like). Gently stir through the chocolate and walnut mix and pour into the tin.

Bake for 30-35 mins or until a skewer poked in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 5-10 mins before removing from the tin and leaving to cool completely on a wire rack.

When completely cool make the frosting by beating the butter and icing sugar until pale and fluffy and then whisking in the speculoos paste and add the milk a little at a time until you get a spreadable consistency. Split the cake in two with a bread knife and spread half the frosting in the middle of the cake and half on the top. Decorate with a sprinkle of chopped walnuts if you like.

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Do you want to bake along with the Great Bloggers Bake Off? Check out the rules over with Mummy Mishap, the artist otherwise known as Jenny Berry.