Bailey’s Irish Coffee Cake

Bailey's Irish Coffee Cake on a platter with slice cut.
Irish Cream Coffee Cake

Bailey’s Irish Coffee Cake – Everyone is familiar with Coffee Cake, right?  It’s that yellow cake with brown sugar and you eat it with coffee.  Well, that’s not what this is.  This is cake . . . with coffee.  Coffee in the cake.  And throw in a little Bailey’s while you’re at it.  Irish Coffee Cake.  Yeah.  There you go.

The Long Library in Dublin

I took a tour of Ireland with Grand Circle Travel (highly recommended.  We started in Galway on the northwest coast, and traveled all the way around to Dublin, seeing all the sights along the way.  We had many great meals (some of which I share in this post on St. Patrick’s Day recipes).  But finally, at our farewell dinner, we were served this Irish Cream Coffee Cake. It’s not coffee cake in the American sense – a yellow cake with a sugar crumble on top. No – this is cake made with coffee, with some Bailey’s thrown in because – well, because it’s Irish. It was so unusual I had to get the recipe.

Irish coffee cakes are quite popular, and the Irish can toss back their coffee as easily as they can their whiskey (notice the “e” in Irish whiskey.  Scots skip the “e” in Scotch whisky.)  Usually they are made in a bundt pan, as I have here.  But the ingredients can vary – one of the most common changes being the addition of chocolate into the batter.  Mine seems to be the most common Irish Coffee Cake recipe, but I did find the chocolate versions pretty tasty, too.

After serving your Irish Stew or Dublin Coddle and toasting St. Patrick a few times, toast your friends and neighbors with this delicious Irish Cream Coffee Cake.

The original recipe called for 2 full tablespoons of coffee extract in the icing, which for me would have been just waaaaaay too much.  But you may like it.  Just taste your icing as you’re working on it and add more if you want.

Bailey’s Irish Coffee Cake

Everyone is familiar with Coffee Cake, right? It’s that yellow cake with brown sugar and you eat it with coffee. Well, that’s not what this is. This is cake . . . with coffee. Coffee in the cake. And throw in a little Bailey’s while you’re at it. Yeah. There you go.
Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time55 minutes
Total Time1 hour 25 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: Irish
Keyword: Irish Cream Coffee Cake
Servings: 12 Servings
Author: Don Herman

Ingredients

  • 2.25 Sticks Unsalted Butter
  • 12 oz Caster or Baker’s sugar see Instructions
  • 6 lg Eggs
  • 8 oz Milk
  • 1/2 cup Sour Cream
  • 2 1/2 cups Flour
  • 1 tsp Baking Powder
  • 2 tbsp Coffee Extract or 1 TBL instant coffee granules and 2 tsp water
  • 1 tbsp Irish Cream liqueur

Icing

  • 1 1/4 cup Powdered Sugar
  • 1 tsp Coffee Extract
  • 1 tbsp Irish Cream liqueur
  • 2 tsp Water or Milk

Instructions

  • Grease and flour a bundt pan.  Be sure to dust all the corners.  Preheat the oven to 350 F.
  • Beat together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and pale.
  • Add the eggs, one at a time until incorporated.
  • Add the milk and sour cream and combine.
  • Mix the baking powder and flour with a whisk and slowly add to the batter.  Scrape down the sides and beat until smooth – about two more minutes.
  • Pour about 3/4 of the batter into the prepared bundt pan.
  • Mix the coffee extract or granule/water mixture and the Irish Cream to the remaining batter.  Drop this batter onto the top of the batter in the bundt pan and cut through it several times with a butter knife.
  • Bake at 350 for about 55 minutes (mine was right on at 55 min.) or until a pick comes out clean.  Cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, invert and let the cake cool completely.
  • To make the icing, simply mix together the powdered sugar, Irish Cream and coffee extract or granules and slowly add water or milk until you get a fairly thin consistency.  The icing on my cake in the picture is just a little too thick – I should have added a few drops more water.
  • Drizzle the cake with icing.

Notes

Caster sugar (in the U.S. we call it “baker’s sugar”) is simply a finer granulated sugar. You can find it in most stores in the baking section. But you can also make it yourself – see the instructions here.
Coffee extract: This too, you can find in a store, but it’s pretty pricey.  I just used the coffee granules and water.  I picked up a box of Via French Roast packets from Starbucks – one tablespoon is about 3 packets.
The original recipe called for 2 full tablespoons of coffee extract in the icing, which for me would have been just waaaaaay too much.  But you may like it.  Just taste your icing as you’re working on it and add more if you want.

This recipe calls for a high-quality Bundt pan. Did you know you can find dozens of unique Bundt pans at Etsy – the Small Business Cooperative? Check them out:

Nordic Ware® Citrus Blossom Bundt Cake Baking Pan

Drop a note and let me know how it worked out for you!

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