kopi cake with peanut honeycomb

kopi cake with peanut honeycomb

• 23 Feb 2026

I requested Helen Goh's book, 'Baking and the Meaning of Life' from my local library. It was very popular and there were many people ahead of me in the queue. After waiting patiently for 2 months without any luck, I decided to buy my own copy. 

I promptly bookmarked at least 30 recipes I needed to make, some sweet and some savoury.

I am not a coffee lover but I do love peanut brittle so when I saw the photo of the kopi cakes topped with peanut honeycomb I knew I had to make them. Rather than making mini cakes I decided to make one larger loaf cake and I used my own coffee icing recipe as I didn't have quite enough condensed milk. If you'd like to make the smaller cakes or Helen's icing, the link to the recipe is below.

Here's the recipe for you in Helen's own words, which makes a small loaf cake. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C

Kopi Cake with Peanut Honeycomb - makes 1 loaf
Cake
180 g self-raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp fine sea salt
180 g unsalted butter, cut into roughly 6 pieces, then left at room temperature
100 g caster sugar
80 g soft dark brown sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
10 g instant coffee powder, dissolved in 20 ml water from a recently boiled kettle

Coffee Icing
1 tsp coffee powder dissolved in 2 tsp boiling water
½ tsp vanilla paste
60g room temperature unsalted butter
60g mascarpone or cream cheese at room temperature
20g milk powder
generous pinch sea salt flakes
125g sifted icing sugar

Peanut honeycomb (optional)
70 g caster sugar
30 g golden syrup or honey
1 15ml tbs water
70 g roasted peanuts
pinch of fine sea salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Cake
Grease and line the base and sides of a 1 standard loaf tin (approximately 1 kg capacity, roughly 20 x 10 cm) with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 160°C fan-forced/180°C conventional.

Sift the flour, cinnamon and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. Place the butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed until light and creamy-about 2 minutes.




Reduce the speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping down the base and sides of the bowl after each addition. The mixture will look curdled at this stage, but don't worry - it will come together at the end. Add the sifted dry ingredients and the coffee, then mix on medium-low speed just until it is combined.

Scrape the batter into the prepared tins and bake for about 50-55 minutes for the loaf tin - a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean. Place the tins on a wire rack and allow to cool for about 15 minutes before turning the cakes out to cool completely. While the cake is in the oven, make the icing.

Icing
Place the coffee in a small bowl and pour the boiling water over. Stir well to combine, then set aside to cool to room temperature.

Place the cooled coffee, vanilla, butter, mascarpone or cream cheese, milk powder and salt in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Sift the icing sugar over the top. Beat with the paddle attachment for 10 minutes on speed 4 (below low) until pale, and fluffy. Store covered in the fridge until needed. If the icing is too firm , you may need to re-whip it or soften in 10 second bursts in the microwave.



Peanut honeycomb
Line a baking tray with baking paper. Combine the caster sugar, golden syrup (or honey) and water in a small saucepan. Place over low heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Without stirring, bring to a low simmer and cook until the mixture has just turned golden brown and reached 149°C (hard crack stage) on a candy thermometer (about 3-5 minutes). Add the peanuts and salt, stir to combine, then quickly stir in the bicarbonate of soda. When it foams up, pour the honeycomb onto the lined baking tray, then set it aside to cool completely.



When you are ready to serve, break the honeycomb into smaller pieces and place it in a ziplock bag. Roughly bash the bag a few times with a rolling pin to lightly crush the honeycomb.

Spread (or pipe) the icing thickly on top of the loaf then sprinkle with the peanut honeycomb. Serve at room temperature.



Preparation Tip
The peanut honeycomb is gilding the lily somewhat, so don't feel you have to make it, but for textural crunch, it adds another dimension to the cake. It can be made in advance and stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

I did have a few little hiccups with the cake. My instant coffee powder just wouldn't dissolve properly; I misread the recipe and didn't add enough bicarb soda to the peanut honeycomb so it became peanut brittle and the cake sank spectacularly in the centre. Memo to self - don't bake when you're sick with the flu and have spent most of the weekend in bed because it never works out well. In the end I filled the crevasse with sweetened whipped mascarpone cream into which I folded some of the finely chopped peanut brittle (a Schitt's Creek reference, IYKYK) and the people to whom the cake were served, declared it delicious.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen, hopefully error free.

Bye for now,

Jillian