Cake of the Week: Raspberry Bakewell Cake

I love the flavours of a classic Bakewell tart, but I sometimes find the combination of pastry  and cake a bit too much. So, I have devised this cake recipe which has the gorgeous combination of almonds and raspberry, but without the stodge of a pastry case. If you've got some home made jam stashed away, that will really give your cake the edge. I've used 4 eggs for this recipe, as our hens think it is summer again because of the warm weather and have started laying again like mad!









Ingredients

Cake:
200g soft butter
200g caster sugar
150g SR flour
4 eggs, beaten
50g ground almonds
1 teaspoon almond extract
a handful of flaked almonds

Icing:
100g soft butter
200g icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Raspberry jam

Method

Cream butter and sugar till light and soft. 

Add the beaten egg slowly, mixing well between each addition. Once all the egg mix is incorporated, give everything a really good mix together. Add the almond extract and stir again to combine.

Next fold in the sifted flour and ground almonds.

Dollop the mix into two 8cm diameter cake tins which you have base lined with baking parchment and greased the sides (I like to use the butter wrapper to smear around the edges). Level the mixture and sprinkle  the flaked almonds over one  tin (this will be the top of your cake).

Bake at 180c until the sponges are risen and spring back when you touch them lightly with your finger.

When the cakes are cool, remove them from their tins (run a blunt knife around the edge of the tins to loosen first). 

To make the icing, beat the butter until smooth and very soft. Add the icing sugar and almond extract together with a tablespoon of water from a recently boiled kettle. Beat together vigorously until the icing is soft and whipped. You can add a little more water if the icing feels like it won't spread easily and beat again. 

Spread one half of the cake with the icing, followed by a layer of jam and then sandwich it together with the other half (making sure you leave the half of the cake with the almonds on top as you're 'top'). Dust with icing sugar and get the kettle on!