Pecan-Espresso Birthday Cake with Coffee Icing

The cake layers are adapted from a recipe in Rose Levy Beranbaum's Rose's Heavenly Cakes. Don't be put off by what seems like a vast amount of pecans and eggs in the batter - remember, there's almost nothing else in it besides that!

Ingredients

For the cake:

1 1/2 cups sugar
5 1/2 cups pecans halves
2 tablespoons instant espresso powder (I use Medaglia D’Oro)
14 large eggs, separated
1 3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

For the coffee cream and decoration:

16 ounces Tofutti cream cheese, at room temperature
8 ounces Earth Balance natural shortening, at room temperature
4 ounces Spectrum organic all-vegetable shortening, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
about 1 1/2 tablespoons coffee extract, or to taste
1/4 cup chocolate-covered espresso beans, coarsely chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease the bottom of two 9-inch round springform cake pans, then cut a circle of parchment paper to fit over the greased bottom. You don’t want to grease the sides.

Toast the pecans on a baking sheet for 5-7 minutes, stirring once. They should be fragrant and taste toasty. Let them cool to room temperature, then put them in a food processor with 1/2 cup of the sugar. Grind for just a few pulses, until the pecans are fine but not oily. Set aside.

Put the egg yolks and 3/4 cup sugar in a medium mixing bowl and beat them with a handheld mixer for about 5 minutes, until the yolks have lightened in color and are thick and fluffy. Fold the pecans into this mixture.

Rinse the beaters really well and dry them thoroughly.

In another mixing bowl, beat the egg whites and cream of tarter with the clean beaters until the whites form soft peaks. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar slowly as you beat, and stop when the egg whites form soft peaks when the whisk is raised.

Add about one-quarter of the egg whites to the pecan-yolk mixture and fold to combine. In three parts, add the remaining egg whites, folding gently but thoroughly. You want the whites to be completely incorporated, with no streaks left.

Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and smooth the top. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the cakes are springy to the touch and no longer jiggly. Remove from the oven and invert the cakes immediately on a lightly greased rack. Let them sit until cool to the touch, about 45 minutes, then run an offset spatula or butter knife around the edges, then loosen the pans and invert the cake onto baking sheets. Remove the pan bottom and the parchment, and let the cakes cool completely.

Combine all the ingredients for the icing in a food processor and process until smooth. Taste for balance of flavors, adding more sugar or coffee flavor as needed.

Place one cake layer on a serving platter. Top with about 3/4 cup of icing and using an offset spatula or butterknife to spread evenly across. Put the second layer on top. Because the cakes are a little crumbly, you’ll want to frost the outside in two steps. First, spread a thin coat of icing all around the top and sides, filling in any gaps. Don’t worry if crumbs get into the icing. Put the cake in the refrigerator for about half an hour, to let the icing set. Then spread the remaining icing all around the top and sides.

Sprinkle the chopped espresso beans across the top. Serve room temperature or cold.

Cara and Phoebe are the co-fouonders of Big Girls, Small Kitchen, a food and recipe guide for twenty-something cooks looking for user-friendly, affordable ways to navigate their kitchens. On the blog, they offer fun kitchen strategies to help all home cooks of limited resources make the most of their tools available, big kitchen or small.

Their first cookbook, In The Small Kitchen: 100 Recipes From Our Year of Cooking in the Real World, will be published on May 24th by Harper Collins.

Serves

14