One Little Piggy

Lonely little piggy sitting on top of an Espresso Coffee Cake!


My friend Clara requested a birthday cake for her sister Ellen. She wanted a light coffee flavored cake with raspberry buttercream, the light coffee cake flavor preferred by many Asians versus a chocolately coffee cake. To top off the cake, Clara suggested maybe a Pig because in the Chinese Zodiac, her sister is the Year of the Pig!


So here is the Espresso Cake Recipe that I developed for a light coffee flavored cake. This cake tastes like coffee, not like a chocolate cake that has hints of coffee flavor that is used to bring out the chocolate flavor. That would be my Mocha Chocolate cake recipe, which I will post soon :)

Espresso Coffee Cake
(with Espresso glaze)

Makes 2 – 8” or 9” inch pans or 12 cup Bundt Pan

Dry Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. potato starch
1 tbsp. Cocoa Powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt

Liquid Ingredients:

¾. cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream
3 tbsp. Brandy
2 tbsp. instant espresso powder (dissolved in 1 Tablespoon hot water and then pour into the liquid mix)

Creaming Ingredients:

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
2 cups granulated sugar
3 tbsp. turbinado sugar
4 large eggs

For the Glaze-
1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
2-3 Tablespoons strong brewed coffee
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted

Make the Espresso Cake-

Put a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Generously butter and flour the two 8- inch pans. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, starch, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.

Combine butter and sugar in a bowl and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Change to lowest speed and add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the dry ingredients flour mixture alternately with the liquid mixture in 3 to 5 additions, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mixing until just incorporated. Move swiftly through this set to avoid overmixing the batter. This step should take about 60 seconds.

Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix on medium speed for 15 to 20 seconds to develop the batter’s structure.

Then scoop and drop the batter into 3 sections of each 8 inch pan and use an offset spatula to spread the batter evenly into the pan. Pick up the pan and drop it on the counter a couple of times to get the air bubbles out of the batter.

Bake until cake slightly comes away from the sides of the pan, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 -35 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack for 30 minutes, then invert onto a rack to cool completely.

I torted my cake horizontally in half and put raspberry buttercream between the layers to make this cake.


One Little piggy on my cakeeeeeeeee~