Coffee Walnut and Hazelnut Cake: Gourmet's 50 Women Game Changers # 26, Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers

This week we're up to #26 on Gourmet's list of the 50 Women Game Changers in the world of food: Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, the two women behind the game changing River Cafe in London. Thanks to Mary from One Perfect Bite for organizing a group of us cooking and blogging our way through this list, one dish at a time.  Check back every Friday for another story and recipe from the list, and e-mail Mary if you'd like to join the group.

These two women are on Gourmet's list of women game changers because they did just that, they changed the game of food in Britain forever when they opened their restaurant, River Cafe, in 1987. They introduced the country to the concept of seasonal, ingredients-based cooking, first, through the rustic Italian cuisine in the restaurant, then by writing up the recipes in subsequent cookbooks, and finally by training chefs (Jamie Oliver among them) who themselves went on to disseminate the new cooking style. 
The one theme that kept surfacing over and over again as I read about these ladies and the River Cafe was the ultimate respect for and focus on the quality of ingredients. The style of cooking that Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers practice relies on the freshest local ingredients for success. The recipes themselves are based on simple farmhouse cooking, not on fancy methods and sauces, etc.  So the quality of the ingredients makes or breaks these kinds of dishes. But as they say, “Easy food doesn’t have to mean unsophisticated food" and they've proven it.

The dominant flavors in this cake are the hazelnuts, espresso, and vanilla.  The ratio of ingredients is very different from most cakes I've made; it has very little flour along with tons of butter, eggs and nuts. The instruction to "chop 3 vanilla beans" flummoxed me. I had planned to just scrape out the seeds up until the last minute when I decided to go for it. I popped the whole beans in my mini processor and whirled away.  I added the sugar to the beans to facilitate the chopping and it eventually chopped them extremely fine.  In the end, I didn't notice that it made a stronger vanilla flavor, I would use the seeds of 1 bean and some extract next time.  You'll need a kitchen scale for this recipe, at least for the nuts.  I gave you the conversions for the other ingredients.

Coffee Walnut and Hazelnut Cake     ~~~from the River Cafe

(my notes are in red)

Instant coffee 5 tbsp (I used instant espresso)
Shelled walnuts 240g
Shelled hazelnuts 240g
Vanilla pods 3 (I used 2)
Unsalted butter 380g (3 sticks plus 3 Tbsp)
Caster sugar 380g (1 1/4 cups)
Eggs, organic 5
Plain flour 100g (4/5 of a cup)
Baking powder 1 tsp
Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/gas mark 3. Using extra butter and flour, grease a 25cm cake tin and line with parchment paper. (I used a 9" non-stick springform pan)
Dissolve the coffee in two tablespoons of boiling water. Chop the walnuts. Roast the hazelnuts in the preheated oven until brown (about 10 minutes), cool, then rub off the skins and grind to a fine powder. Finely chop the vanilla pods.
Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and light.  Beat the eggs into the mixture one at a time.  Stir in the hazelnuts, walnuts and vanilla pods. Fold in the flour and baking powder and finally stir in the coffee. Spoon into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for an hour and a quarter (an hour and 10 minutes.) Allow to cool on a rack.
Using instant coffee in this recipe is intentional. The cake requires a very strong coffee flavor with as little liquid as possible, which rules out using filter or even espresso coffee.

As you probably could have guessed, this cake is lovely with a cup of strong coffee.  I didn't want to tempt myself, but if I were serving it to guests it could also use a dollop of creme fraiche or whipped cream.

Note:  This is the recipe that finally prompted me to go out and find a kitchen scale.  If you like to cook, get yourself one this holiday season, they aren't expensive.  The Internet has opened up a treasure trove of international recipes, but in order to access them we Americans have to be able to weigh ingredients.  Things like the nuts in this recipe are impossible to translate into cup measures; they vary too greatly depending on whether they are whole, roughly chopped, or finely chopped.

Be sure to check out these other bloggers who are joining me in this exploration of the 50 Women Game Changers in the world of food---
Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Heather - girlichef
Miranda of Mangoes and Chutney
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Barbara - Movable Feasts
Jeanette - Healthy Living
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Linda A - There and Back Again
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits,
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen
Annie - Lovely Things
Nancy - Picadillo
Claudia - Journey of an Italian Cook