Coffee and Walnut Traybake

At this time of year I am often asked to supply a cake for some charity event or other and I have discovered that this is the most popular. It will cut into about 12-16 squares and is very easy to make.

Linda Donaldson

Cake tin needed - a 12 x 9in tray bake or roasting tin.

Ingredients:

For the cake: For the icing

225g. (8oz.) butter, softened

225g. (8oz.) light muscovado sugar

275g. (10oz.) self-raising flour

2 level tsp. baking powder

75g. (3oz.) butter, softened

225g. (8oz.) sifted icing sugar

2 tsp. milk

2 tsp. coffee essence

4 large eggs Walnut halves

2 tbsp. milk

2 tbsp. coffee essence (Waitrose has a bottle of Camp coffee with the baking things)

75g. (3oz.) chopped walnuts

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan 160/gas 4. Grease the tin and then line the base with non-stick baking parchment.

2. Measure all the cake measurements into a large bowl and beat until well blended. Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and level the surface.

3. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the cake has shrunk away from the sides of the tin and springs back when pressed in the centre with your fingertips. Leave to cool in the tin.

4. To make the icing, beat together the butter, icing sugar, milk and coffee essence. Spread evenly over the cold cake using a palette knife and then decorate with the walnut halves and cut into pieces.

Greetings from Borneo

Dear All,

We have just enjoyed a trip to the island of Borneo to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary - Coral according to Mrs Beeton. We did also incorporate ticking off seeing orangutans from our bucket list while we were at it. Not only the orangutans in the sanctuary but also in the wild on the Kinabantangan River. We also saw many other exotic creatures - I hadn't even heard of the Western tarsier shown above but also sun bears, giant red flying squirrels, proboscis monkeys, pygmy elephants, hornbills and the paradise tree snake. We enjoyed coral reefs in three locations. Close to one uninhabited island, where we were the sole visitors, we even transplanted some live coral for future generations. On another I got rather closer to a reef shark than I would have liked but there was a profusion of coral on all the reefs and so many anemones and clown fish. Best of all my favourite reef fish - the Moorish idol. It wasn't all active - we spent some time on a beautiful tropical island where we could relax completely.

Debbie Peet