Good morning everyone – hope you’re all feeling happy and ready for a new day. Earlier in the month, I promised you a recipe for Spiced Walnut Cake and I’m really excited to share this one with you as it wowed in taste. Honestly, walnuts get a bit of a bad name in the world of nuts and often rely on coffee to hype them up, but after you taste this, I’m sure you’ll agree that walnuts definitely have their place on their own too.

right, you need:

100g walnut halves

225g unsalted butter

225g caster sugar

225g self-raising flour

2tsp baking powder

1tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp mixed spice

4 large eggs

Zest of 1 orange

250g soft cream cheese (full fat)

80g unsalted butter

150g icing sugar

juice 1 orange

25g chopped walnuts

Now you know my rule when it comes to baking with nuts: we must roast them separately first. I really believe this makes such a difference to the flavour of your bakes.

To do this, preheat your oven to 200 degrees and lay the walnut halves down flat on a baking tray. Roast in your oven for 10 minutes. Then, take them out and allow them to cool down before chopping them up into small pieces.

Leave your oven on, put lower it down to 190 degrees. Grab 2 x 8″ cake tins and grease/line them up.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Follow this by adding your 4 eggs, making sure they are beaten in well.

Throw in your chopped walnuts and orange zest.

Sieve in the flour and baking powder and spices mixing until fully combined. Feel free to add more spice if you like but I think this worked well.

Split the cake mix into your 2 tins and bake for at least 20 minutes.

When baked, the cakes should be a lovely golden brown colour and should bring back if you press a finger down onto them.

Take the cakes out of the oven and allow to cool on a wire tray.

To make the cream cheese topping, soften your butter in a large bowl and follow with the cream cheese.

Sieve in the icing sugar and beat, using the orange juice to loosen the mixture up. If you want the topping to be very sweet, add all or more icing sugar. If you want a contrast to the sweetness of the cake, taste as you go along to see where it’s right to stop.

To bring it together simply sandwich the cakes with some of your icing and cover the top with the rest.

Scatter chopped walnuts around the sides of the cakes to decorate. More orange zest would also look really pretty here.

Guys, let me know what you think of this Spiced Walnut Cake and whether you agree with me on the taste! I will definitely be making this one again!

Sinéad