Raspberry and Blackberry Almond Ripple Cake

I bought a 200g punnet of raspberries, intending to make this Raspberry and Amaretti Crunch Cake, with some Amaretti biscuits approaching their use-by date, but the reviews said the biscuits lost their crunch after the first day, which was not really a surprise, but deterred me from making it, as I knew the cake would be around for at least three days. It seems to be a cake which needs eating at once to really appreciate the texture - perhaps the right occasion to make it will arise!.

I looked around for other recipes for slightly unusual raspberry cakes and came across this one for a Raspberry Ripple Cake; the only problem was that it needed 300g raspberries. I decided to make the first stage - the fruit purée - with 100g of blackberries from the freezer, and use the fresh raspberries in the other stages - the fruit added to the cooked purée and the topping.

While I was making changes, I also decided to replace 50g of flour with ground almonds and add a few drops of almond extract to the cake batter too, to introduce more of the almond flavour the original cake would have had. As my eggs were large, I omitted the extra egg yolk and added a little more milk to give the batter a dropping consistency.

Using blackberries turned out to be a really good idea; the ripple layers were tart and intensely flavoured and a good contrast to the sweet raspberries topping the cake. The cake was a little denser than I'd hoped for, especially considering that it needed refrigerating to keep it fresh, but I can use the idea of the fruit purée to make ripples in a better cake batter.

I forgot to swirl the ripples before adding the topping and this would probably have made the cake look even better. The blue background of my cake box is not the best look, either, but the cake was too difficult to move once it had been put there.

Well, we're off to Canada for the first two weeks of September (for a tour of Vancouver, the Inside Passage and the Rockies), so I won't be posting for a while. By the time we get back it should be apple picking time and autumn cooking.