Graham Herterich’s traditional coffee and walnut cake, and modern pavlova with coffee-poached pears

Coffee and walnut cake

I once asked people on Instagram to tell me what their favourite traditional bakes are and no bake was as popular - or caused as much controversy - as coffee (and walnut) cake.

People have so many memories of it: it was homemade; it was made by a relative; it was served in Arnott’s Café; the best one was from the Tea Time Express. But there were also very different rules ...