Almond Coffee Pound Cake

I am not sure is it due to the stress recently, I started to crave for coffee frequently after stopped drinking it for 20+ years. I used to be a loyal coffee drinker, forced to stop due to the overdose caffeine symptoms such as accelerated heartbeat and jtteriness, which I was badly affected. 

I am not a coffee cake lover, although I like coffee but not any bakes with coffee, be it cake, bread or cookies. This is the same like 2 of my colleagues, love to eat durian but simply just refuse to eat anything that make with durian, they only want to consume fresh durian lol. I will not be interested at all if I get to know that the bake is coffee flavor, I usually will not consume too as I do not want to load additional calories to my body for the food that I dun really fancy lol.

During Christmas, I baked some cupcakes as give away to my colleagues and also for my Christmas eve dinner at my place. At the night when I was baking, I decided to bake more varieties rather than just to stick to 2 flavors. But that was a so last min decision, I was not sure are there sufficient ingredients in my pantry. Thus I decided to look out for recipes with easy and simple ingredients but of course cannot compromise on the taste as well. I remember I saw this almond coffee pound cake that Ann was raving about and Jessie had given good review as well. Quickly checked my pantry, luckily I still have ground almond but no almond flakes, never mind I can replace with oreo biscuit :D.

Recipe from Anncoo Journal


Ingredients

150g Butter
120g Brown Sugar

1/2 tsp Salt

3 Eggs (60g), lightly beaten

1/2 tbsp Instant coffee powder (Nescafe classic) 

1 tbsp Kahlua/rum

170g Plain flour + 1 tsp Baking powder,   sifted

 2 tbsp Ground almond

1 tbsp Fresh milk

Amond flakes for topping (I used oreo biscuit)

Method:
1. Cream butter, sugar and salt at medium speed until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually add beaten eggs little by little until combined and add coffee powder and kahlua it and mix well.
3. Sift the plain flour and baking powder the second time directly to the batter with ground almond and gently fold well with a rubber spatula. 
4. Then add 1 tbsp fresh milk into it and fold the batter to smooth.
5. Pour batter into prepared cake pan or cupcake cases and sprinkle almond flakes and oreo biscuit on top.
6. Bake at preheated oven at 190C for 10 minutes. Then reduce temperature to 170C and bake for another 25 - 30 minutes or skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (I baked for about 20 mins or less for cupcakes)
7. Leave cake to cool in cake pan for 10 minutes and remove cake, then place on to rack to cool completely.

Verdict?
I totally agreed with Ann that coffee lovers will not resist having a slice or two of this almond coffee pound cake. Even a non coffee cake lover like me, I must admit 100% that this cake is so yummy, it is soft, moist and flavorful with very nice coffee fragrant. This cake has totally changed my concept on coffee cake, I do not mind trying other coffee cake in future lol. I wish to have more but I need to share half of the cupcake with dear husband since the rest had distributed, I had left one for photo-shooting lol. Dear husband also given thumbs up on this cake, definitely a keeper! 

Take a peep at the cupcakes galore that served during Christmas Eve dinner , can you spot the almond coffee cupcake?