Nusskuchen

It’s a fair while since I made a cake and I thought it about time I got my act together and got baking.  I decided to turn to The Good Granny Cookbook: Traditional Favourites for Modern Families (Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall) which is full of ‘old fashioned’ recipes which remind me of my grandmothers baking and times gone by.

Hidden amongst the familiar cakes lay a hidden treasure – nusskuchen, which is a German hazelnut coffee cake traditionally filled with an apple filling.

The cake was incredibly light and moist, mainly due to the juicy apple filling being soaked up by the sponge layers. The nuts then perform a vital function by absorbing the moisture but keeping some resistance and therefore stability for the cake.

The slight bitterness of the coffee and dark chocolate really draws out the sweetness of the apples giving a good all round flavour which is neither overly sweet or overly rich, just perfectly balanced. 

An incredibly easy and quick cake to make too, the filling can be made in the time the cake takes to bake and then it takes seconds to ice; absolutely perfect as an impromptu dessert.

The only down side to the cake is that I don’t think it would be particularly good if you wanted to wrap it up to take in a packed lunch, rather too moist and messy for that.