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Light, delicious and easy coffee and walnut cupcakes with an easy coffee buttercream frosting!

I have been trying to think of cupcake recipes that people would want to see and make themselves, and these came up. My coffee cake recipe was so popular and such a big hit with my readers that I know these will be loved by all too!

My carrot & walnut cupcakes are such an old recipe on this blog now that they’re rarely seen, but these will hopefully bring the walnut love back. If you like coffee cake then you will utterly adore these. One of my family friends literally CONSTANTLY says that she likes walnuts with her coffee cake, so these were made as her little birthday treat and they went down an absolute storm!

Coffee bakes

When I was little I never really liked nuts and I couldn’t drink coffee… so these sound like my childhood nightmare. HOWEVER. These cupcakes are SO damn moist and delicious I just can’t get over it – and the nuts give that added extra crunch that everybody craves in a cupcake!

Sometimes people can find that cupcakes can be a bit sickly, or too sweet? But the coffee in the sponge and buttercream gives it a delightful twist of almost bitterness with sweetness? It’s delicious either way.

I haven’t done many coffee based bakes yet on this blog but they are so underrated. Now I adore coffee everything so I always want to post more and more coffee bits and bobs.

Which coffee

So when I make coffee based bakes, I always use an instant coffee compared to anything from my espresso machine as I find it creates a stronger flavour, but both can work really well.

I dissolve my instant coffee in as little boiling water as possible and then it creates the perfect base flavour. I tend to make my cupcake mix up after I have dissolved my coffee so that it has a chance to cool before using in the mixture.

If you want to use an espresso shot then you absolutely can – I have used a two shot out of my Nespresso machine before and it worked well in the cake mix and also the frosting as well.

Cupcake mix

The cupcake mixture for a bake like this is super simple and adaptable. I try to use as few ingredients as possible in my bakes, so a bake like this is the best.

Butter – for the sponges you can use either a block butter at room temperature, or you can use a baking spread which a lot of people prefer using.
Sugar – I use light brown soft sugar when I bake these because I want the slightly caramel flavour, but you can use caster sugar if you prefer. You can also use dark brown soft sugar if you want a deeper ore treacle like flavour
Eggs – I use medium eggs, so in this recipe I used four.
Flour – self raising flour is the best of the best for a bake like this.

Buttercream Frosting

When it comes to a buttercream frosting where you are adding liquid, you need to be more careful. I will always use a block butter (the kind wrapped in foil), at room temperature.

I will beat the butter on it’s own for a couple of minutes to make sure it’s nice and loose but this stage can vary… if it’s peak summer it won’t take long at all, but middle of winter you may be waiting a while.

I use the same theory of coffee for the frosting as well as the cake mix so I dissolve the coffee first and then mix it into the mixture. I used the same coffee again here as well.

Tips & Tricks

Recipe updated September 2023 – 175g butter, 175g light brown sugar, 3 large eggs, 175g self raising flour, 2 tsps coffee dissolved in water, 75g walnuts chopped. The method and theory are the same, just slightly different quantities.

These cupcakes last 3+ days at room temperature
These can freeze for 3+ months
I use this piping tip
I use these piping bags
The walnuts are optional, you can leave them out. Or, you cans was them to an alternate nut.