Decorating Coffee Walnut Layer Cake

Our answer

Nigella's Coffee And Walnut Layer Cake (from KITCHEN) is a sponge cake that is enriched with ground walnuts. The cake itself is quite robust so we suspect that the cake could be covered with fondant (rolled fondant) icing.

If you are going to cover the cake with this type of icing then you should still make the coffee buttercream as you will need to use buttercream to sandwich the cake layers together. It is also a good idea to cover the top and sides of the cake with a layer of buttercream as this will help the fondant icing to adhere to the cake as well as giving a smooth finish. For the best finish you should initially do a thin "crumb coat" of buttercream and then a second coat of buttercream that can be smoothed before the fondant icing is draped over. So you are likely to need double the quantity of buttercream in the recipe. However as we have not covered the cake with this type of icing we are unable to guarantee the results.