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Lime Curd Crunch Cake

This was a little experimental. It happened when I saw a jar of lime curd in the supermarket and couldn’t stop thinking about it. This happens me sometimes with ingredients, which I realise sounds odd, but I had to try it out and it turned out to be seriously tasty.

My parents came over and were willing guinea pigs – we obliterated almost half the cake; I don’t expect the other half to last much longer. This turned out to be a lovely fluffy kind of cake with zingy little pockets of lime curd and a crunchy top. Just perfect with a cup of coffee and some cream on the side. Don’t volunteer to make the second pot of coffee because when your back is turned this happens …

130g butter, room temperature

170g golden caster sugar, plus 2 tblsp for sprinkling

150g plain flour plus 1 tblsp for coating the tin

1 tsp baking powder

3 large eggs

25g ground almonds

2-3 tblsp flaked almonds

1 jar lime curd (you will use about 200g of the curd)

zest of 1 lime

 

Preheat your oven to 170c. Butter and flour a deep round springform baking tin.

Mix the curd and lime zest together and set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter together in a stand mixer until pale, fluffy and creamy – a few minutes. Now mix in the flour and baking powder followed by the eggs and ground almonds. Don’t overmix.

 

Spread evenly in the tin and then with the back of a teaspoon, make little indentations in the batter. Put a spoon of curd in each hollow. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of golden caster sugar over the top, followed by the flaked almonds.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, until golden on top and a tester comes out clean of batter (but not of curd – that’s allowed!)

Cool in the tin for ten minutes then remove the sides and cool further. Serve with whipped cream.

 

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A Spin on the Bakewell.

 

Blueberry Coconut cake

A spin on the bakewell.

There’s nothing like a slice of cake with a cuppa is there? This one I came up with, adapting a recipe that I have almost worn out from baking (if that’s possible!) from BBC Good Food. It’s a cake version which takes the pressure off performing any kind of pastry miracle. This is almost always a good thing! It never fails. I chose to change it around a little, swapping the raspberries for blueberries and adding a little coconut for a change. I’ve also used strawberries and mixed berries in the original, which is a winner.

 

Ingredients:

100g ground almonds

150g butter, softened to room temperature

140g caster sugar

140g self-raising flour

50g dessicated coconut

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

250g blueberries (fresh or frozen are fine)

2 tblsp flaked almonds

 

Preheat your oven to 180C or fan 160C. Butter and line the base of a 26cm loose bottom tin with baking parchment. Place the butter, ground almonds, sugar, flour, coconut, eggs, and vanilla into a food processor and blitz until smooth and well mixed. Smooth half the mix into the base of the tin. Place the berries on top of the mix, scattering fairly evenly. Smooth the rest of the mix over the berries and sprinkle the flaked almonds on top. Bake for 50 minutes until golden. Cool in the tin then remove carefully to plate. Dust with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of cream.