Honey and Almond Cake

Honey and Almond Cake

Well, no sooner is this week's Cake of the Week being eaten up by our customers, here I am posting about it! I'm getting better at this blogging thing. This is a really lovely recipe, but first things first: I have to apologize to whoever came up with it originally. I can't credit them here as I found it ages ago, wrote it down in my Tome of Cakes and promptly forgot about it for months. I found it by googling 'almond cakes' and trawling through the search results for a while. So if anyone wants to find out where it came from, my advice is to do the same. It's not particularly revolutionary anyway, just a good solid foolproof recipe that is probably as old as the hills.

Ingredients:

300g unsalted butter at room temperature

300g caster sugar

4 medium eggs

150g wholemeal self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

150g ground almonds

50g flaked almonds

4 tbsps runny honey

Grease and line a 24cm springform cake tin and preheat the oven to 170c/GM3

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy - a good five minutes in a mixer should do it

Sift together the wholemeal self-raising flour and baking powder in another bowl 

Add your eggs to the creamed butter and sugar one at a time, mixing thouroughly, and adding a spoonful of the flour after each one

When fully combined, fold in the ground almonds by hand

Then sift in the remaining flour and fold in until just combined

Flop the smooth mixture into the cake tin, smooth the top and scatter the flaked almonds over (fairly) evenly

Put in the oven for around 50 minutes (definitely check on it at this time, but it might need 5 mins more)

When a skewer comes out clean, it's done

Drizzle the runny honey over the warm cake and leave it to seep in as it cools

When it's totally cool, remove from the tin and EAT IT!

Anthony

Lemon Cake

 Lemon Cake with lemon curd and fresh cream

 

I've been promising customers that I'll post Cake of the Week recipes on the blog for ages, and I'm finally getting round to it. I thought I'd start with a recent cake, which I was inspired to make after seeing it on the BBC's Great British Bake Off last month. This recipe is by Ruth Clemens who ended up finishing a creditable second in the competition. Her blog The Pink Whisk is full of her recipes, including the original three-tier version of this one, with instructions for making the lemon curd filling. I'm not going to include that here, as when I tried to make it, it didn't thicken properly (my fault, not hers) so subsequently I've chickened out and used a jar. Also, I've missed out Candied lemon peel from the original, as I'm not a fan. and it's certainly lemony enough without it. Anyway, here it is in slightly wider two-tier form.
Ingredients:

350g/12oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

350g/12oz caster sugar

4 lemons, zest only, plus juice of 2 lemons

6 free-range eggs

3 tsp baking powder

300g/10½oz self-raising flour

50g/2oz cornflour

1 Jar lemon curd (if cheating like me)

300ml double cream

A little icing sugar

Grease and line two 24cm springform cake tins, preheat oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the lemon zest and juice and mix.

Slowly beat in the eggs, one at a time, until the mixture is well combined.

Sift the baking powder, self raising flour and cornflour together in a bowl and fold into the cake mixture.

Divide the cake batter among the sandwich tins and bake for 35-40 minutes or until risen and golden-brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
Remove the cakes from the tins and set aside to cool completely on a rack.
When they're totally cool, spread your lemon curd (very) liberally onto the bottom layer.
Whip the double cream until soft peaks form, whipping in a little icing sugar if you want. I tend not to, just because the lemon curd is pretty sweet anyway.
Spread thickly (mmm!) on top of the lemon curd, then place the top layer on, pressing it down a little so that the filling bulges perilously out of the middle!
Sieve some icing sugar over the top.

Now EAT IT! 

Anthony