A repeat performance

I've already blogged about this cake. The cake my family (aunties) have been making for 60 years. Coffee Crunch Cake. I went back and read my other post about this cake and realized - I needed to re-shoot that cake! The photography skillz have been polished a bit over the last year and I had some time to actually "style" this past weekend - something I rarely have a chance to do. So with some better photos on hand and knowing how much history this cake has in my family, I figured no one would complain about a repeat performance.

We've been making my family's coffee crunch cake for 60 years

This cake gets easier and easier for me to make due likely to the more difficult things I bake. I actually chuckled when I read "...it really is a lot of work. But perhaps because of the work - it is SO satisfying to gaze upon the finished product." These days I say that about macarons! Making this cake is NOTHING anymore! I'm not sharing this recipe at the request of my family - one of those kinds of recipes... But there are many recipes out there if you Google "coffee crunch cake".

As the crunch sits in the whipping cream it "melts"; above shots were
shortly after decorating while top and bottom shots were a day later
(threw some coffee beans in to show scale)

I sorta made this cake twice over the last week. Once Wednesday night for a work potluck on Thursday and a smaller version on Saturday (come on, can't let leftover crunch topping go to waste!) for dinner with Andrea and Jim in the city. All I really had to do was make the sponge cake twice since I had enough crunch and whipping cream takes all of about 2 minutes. The smaller version (that I shot here) is a 7" tube pan I was so excited to find a few years ago. I made a larger 10" (not shown) for the work gathering.

It really could have used another layer if only I had enough whipping cream

I'd normally do 3 layers, but I didn't have enough whipping cream, so 2 it was. I just love this cake. I love how the crunchy toffee slowly melts and gets ooey and gooey but crunchy chewy too. I've had more than one person ask if there is marshmallow in it! Very sweet and very good!