Cake Is Coming!

The woman, the dog and the walnut tree. The harder you beat them, the better they be.
So runs the old rhyme. Clearly the bit about women and dogs is cruel and wrong. Walnut trees - I have no idea, but it is believed that traditionally people hit the trees with heavy sticks and this both brought down the nuts and broke off dead or diseased branches.

I quote it here because two weeks ago, we came out of church and as we walked back to the car we saw a basket of walnuts on a table - plus paper bags and a 'help yourself' sign.
So I did, just a small bagful.
"They'd make a good coffee and walnut cake" I said to Bob [knowing that he likes c&w cake] As we were all going to Adrian and Marion's the following Sunday for lunch, I offered to bring cake.

I found this recipe on the BBC GoodFood website. However that required 85 grams of shelled walnuts, I only had about 50 grams. I set aside the three best looking halves, and chopped the remainder. I folded them all into the mix, but ignored the instruction about "scattering roughly chopped nuts on top of one half"

I made up the filling as per the recipe, but used half to fill and half to top the sponge. The three halves decorated the top.
Judging by the speed with which it was devoured by the family, I consider the cake a great success. I discovered that c&w is a favourite with my brother too. 
Sadly there were no free walnuts on the table on our second Sunday in Norfolk. But I may buy some and make this recipe again. 
I recently won a £5 gift card from Grape Tree Health Foods so a bag of walnuts seems a good use of that. 


The BBC GoodFood site also makes a number of claims about the health benefits of walnuts. They may help your brain, heart and digestion, as well as boosting your mood and aiding weight loss. I'm not sure that eating lots of c&w cake necessarily brings such benefits!