Last week I had cause for celebration - an issue which has been causing me immense stress and anxiety throughout the whole of this year has finally been resolved. I feel like a massive weight has finally been lifted off me. Hopefully I'll start sleeping better and stop feeling like such an emotional wreck.
Anyway, that was a bit deep and vague. Let's talk about cake. Basically the first thing I wanted to do to celebrate was bake a cake. A little raspberry and almond cake.... all for me!
The recipe is from BBC Good Food and I halved the quantities to fit the mixture in a 6 inch cake tin. I also added a few dollops of raspberry jam in the middle of the cake as I only had a handful of raspberries and I subbed the vanilla extract for almond essence for an extra almond kick as it's something I mentioned doing the last two times I used this recipe - first time here and a blackberry version here.
The cake was every bit as good as I remembered, possibly better since I oomphed up the almond flavour. I had a piece fresh from the oven and it was just the most comforting thing ever - warm almond sponge, squidgy raspberries and crunchy flaked almonds. Perfect.
Last night I warmed up a slice, made a big mug of tea and sat down to do some knitting whilst watching Ghosts of Mars on tv. A pretty fantastic Sunday evening, I'm sure you'll agree!
Mini raspberry bakewell cake
75g ground almonds
75g margarine/softened butter
75g golden caster sugar
75g self raising flour
1 large egg
1/4 tsp almond essence
100g (ish) of raspberries. I only had about 50g so added a couple of teaspoonfuls of jam for flavour
handful of flaked almonds
icing sugar, for serving
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/ Gas 4 and grease and line a 6 inch cake tin. Put the ground almonds, butter, sugar, self raising flour, egg and almond essence in a large bowl and mix everything together for about a minute until well blended.
Spread half of the mixture into the base of the cake tin and scatter half your raspberries on top. If you're short of raspberries like me, just put a few small dollops of raspberry jam on top to make up the difference. Spread the rest of the cake mixture on top. Arrange the remaining raspberries on top and scatter with a handful of flaked almonds.
Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 40-45 minutes until risen, light golden and firm to touch. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Leave to cool for 5 minutes or so before taking it out of the tin. Cool on a wire rack or serve warm with a dusting of icing sugar on top.
