Bakewell Cake

It has been a very social fortnight with not one, but two big parties held at my flat. Though we haven't quite had the 'barbecue summer' we were promised, Mother Nature was kind enough to turn the taps off on the both occasions. The day of our engagement party was a little nerve-wracking. We were expecting around thirty for a barbecue in the garden. It poured on and off all morning and we spent the time setting things out and then racing out to bring them all in again. Fortunately, the afternoon was largely dry and we had a great day.

My cousin's hen party was a week later and we were even blessed with a few rays of sun - quite a bonus!

On both occasions, I'd been busy in the kitchen. The flower-sender did the barbecuing, but I did all the salads and a serious amount of baking. Strawberry cupcakes and chocolate brownies were popular, but my personal favourite was a deeply almondy Bakewell Cake. Like Bakewell tart, only in cake form. I made it for a friend whose birthday happened to fall on the day of our party and she seemed pretty chuffed with it. Of course, I gave the leftover cake to her to take home but I have to confess I was rather sorry to see it go. I think I'll have to bake it again soon.

As with so many of my favourite recipes, this came from BBC Good Food. I made a couple of adjustments though. I much prefer raspberry jam to cherry so filled it with this. I also chose to ice the cake so it looked more like my idea of a proper 'Bakewell tart'. Despite what the picture at the end of this post might lead you to believe, it was wonderfully moist and sticky in an amost marzipanny sort of way.

Bakewell Cake

Based on this recipe from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

200g butter, softened (plus extra for greasing)
200g golden caster sugar
100g ground almonds
100g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp almond essence
4 large eggs, preferably free-range

1/2 jar good quality raspberry jam
175g icing sugar
approx 5 tsp lemon juice
5 glace cherries

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C. Grease and line the bases of 2 20cm round cake tins.

2. Using an electric mixer if you have one, cream together the butter and sugar until pale. Add the ground almonds and eggs, one by one. Fold in the flour and baking powder. Add almond essence and mix well until you have a smooth batter.

3. Spoon into the two tins (equally) and try to smooth the tops as best as possible.
Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes until the cakes are springy on top. DO NOT be tempted to open the oven to check on them until at least 25 minutes has passed!

4. When cooked, cool cakes in their tins for a few minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.

5. Once cool, sandwich together with the jam. Sieve the icing sugar into a large bowl and mix with the lemon juice until smooth and thick. Spread icing over top of cake - it doesn't matter if it drips down the sides a bit. Decorate with halved glace cherries.