'A Cake for Midsummer' from Nigel Slater

This was a much more successful recipe from Nigel Slater - a rich almond sponge studded with fresh apricots and raspberries. I've made the cake twice in quick succession this month - once to try it out and again for a Clandestine Cake Club (CCC) meeting. The only changes I made to the recipe, the second time, was to add a few drops of almond extract to the cake batter and sprinkle some flaked almonds on top, to increase the almond-ness of the cake.

The theme for the CCC meeting was 'the third suitable recipe in one of your baking books' and I was stumped for a while, as few of my baking books had suitable recipes. In terms of CCC, 'suitable' means a full-sized cake - not a dessert, brownie, tray bake, small cakes or a tart. Suitable in my case meant something I actually wanted to make!

Most books dealing exclusively with baking go through variations of sponge cakes first, so many books were discarded on the grounds that a basic sponge was too ordinary. Others were discarded because the recipes were too difficult, or I'd already tried that recipe and didn't like the result, or I couldn't get hold of particular ingredients, or even that it didn't seem right for the season. I'd discarded all but two of my baking recipe books when I decided to look at recipe books not exclusively about baking, and found this recipe in Tender: Volume II (Fruit). Being called 'A Cake for Midsummer' made it doubly appropriate for an August meeting.

This is basically a sponge cake with fresh fruit folded in - the only online copy of the recipe coming directly from Nigel Slater uses peaches and blueberries - so it wasn't a difficult recipe to follow. I found I needed to use a tablespoon or two more milk than in the recipe, to loosen the batter enough to fold in the fruit, but other than that there were no problems.

The apricots and raspberries tasted good together, and the almonds kept the cake moist. Adding the flaked almond topping and almond extract to the second cake was a definite improvement, both in taste and appearance

We ate one portion of the cake as a dessert, with the raw fruit left over after making the cake,  and it surprised me that the cooked apricots tasted more intense than raw ones, whereas raw raspberries tasted better than the cooked ones!

Almond, Raspberry and Rose Polenta Cake

- both gluten and dairy free

This was my second attempt at this recipe; the first being this cake, where I changed both the nuts and fruit used. The outcome was delicious, but the fruit sank and spoiled the look of the cake. This time, I made even more adaptations (naughty me!) because I wanted the cake to be dairy-free as well as gluten-free, and I also didn't want to use any citrus fruit. While I was making changes, I decided to replace half the polenta with fine cornmeal, to reduce the graininess of the texture

Ingredients
225g dairy-free spread (I used Pure sunflower spread)
225g caster sugar
3 large eggs
60g fine cornmeal (not cornflour)
65g polenta (the instant kind is all I can get)
125g ground almonds
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon rose water (or more, depending on strength*)
a few drops of almond extract*
50mls water*
200g raspberries

* The rose water, almond extract and water replaces the citrus juice and zest in the original recipe. 50mls is less than the juice of 2 lemons, but I felt the batter was too sloppy the first time I made this cake. 

I only used 1 teaspoon of rose water as the brand I use is quite concentrated. I often see recipes using a lot more, so the strength must vary from brand to brand. I once made the mistake of adding more of the Neilsen-Massey rose water, and the result was inedible because of the overpowering rose flavour.

Method
Grease and line the base of a 23cm springform tin. Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
Cream together the spread and sugar, in a large bowl, until light and fluffy.
In another bowl, mix together the cornmeal, polenta, almonds, baking powder and salt.
Add the rose water and almond extract to the fat and sugar mix, then beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the dry ingredients with each egg.
Fold in the rest of the dry ingredients, in portions, alternating with a splodge of the water, until all ingredients are added.
Let the batter stand for 5 minutes (I was distracted by a phone call at this point, and the batter thickened a little while I was away - I think this may be an advantage, so I'll be adding this stage to the recipe in future!).
Spread half the batter in the baking tin, then sprinkle with half the raspberries (I used the small and broken fruit in the middle). Gently spread over the remaining batter, then arrange the rest of the raspberries on top, spacing them evenly.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and just firm in the centre (I use a colour-changing cake tester, as a probe isn't always reliable when there's fresh fruit in  a cake).
Cool the cake in the tin, and if desired, dust with icing sugar before serving.

I think this cake is one of the best gluten and dairy free cakes I've ever made, and possibly the most delicious seasonal fresh fruit cake I've eaten this summer! That's really saying something, because, as you know, I'm quite critical of my baking and can usually find something wrong.

Unfortunately, I was taking this cake to a friend's house for lunch, and only managed to photograph the cake still in it's baking tin, and the leftovers, so for such a great cake, I'm not showing it at it's best! As you can see, though, the fruit didn't all sink (hooray - main objective achieved!).

The rose flavour was subtle and well balanced against that of the raspberries and almonds. The addition of a few drops of almond extract really brought out the flavour of the nuts - sometimes ground almonds on their own don't have a very strong flavour, which is OK if you're just interested in adding moisture and texture, but not good enough if you want a cake to taste of almonds. The texture was good too - moist, but still quite light, with an even close crumb, and not too gritty from the polenta. I think the only improvement I could make would be to add another 50g of fruit - 200g in such a large cake is quite sparsely distributed.

Late decision - rather than miss the next round of Formula 1 Foods, run by Caroline, from Caroline Makes, because I will be on holiday for most of the first half of September, I will enter this cake. The next F1 GP race takes place in Italy, during the first weekend in September. Almonds and polenta seem to crop up frequently in Italian cake recipes, so this could be said to be an Italian inspired cake, although I'm not sure raspberries and rose flavour really fits the bill! It's this or nothing, Caroline!

Another late decision - as this is by far the best cake I've made for ages, I'm also adding it to the Simply Eggcellent link-up over at Belleau Kitchen. Dom's theme this month is cakes, so I'm looking forward to seeing all the entries and getting some new ideas!

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.

Chocolate Chip and Raspberry Loaf

This cake was an experiment to test the quality of the freeze dried fruit chips sold by Waitrose. Their description suggests they are for cake decoration, but I wanted to see how well they kept their flavour and colour when baked.

I used a 2 egg cake mixture, with Madeira cake proportions - ie a slightly higher proportion of flour than a Victoria Sandwich mixture. To this I added 100g of plain chocolate chips and the whole pack of freeze dried raspberry pieces (only 10g). This was baked for about an hour at 180C in a small loaf tin.

As you can see, the raspberry pieces kept their colour, and the flavour was pretty good too. This is a good way of adding raspberry flavour without the complication of how fresh fruit will react in a cake mixture. However, at £2 for a small 10g pack of fruit, it's quite an expensive addition, particularly as flavour extracts are becoming easier to find.

Raspberry, Oat and Almond Bake

The Guardian newspaper is producing a new supplement in Saturday's edition, entitled Cook, which features more recipes, articles and cooking tips than is usually found in the Weekend magazine.

It looks as if Dan Lepard has swapped to teaching basic baking skills for a while, which is a pity for those of us who appreciate his more innovative recipes, but there's lots more to admire in the supplement, including a selection of readers' recipes on a given theme each week.

Last week, this dessert recipe, from the 'Good for You' section, featuring recipes from Rosie Sykes, caught my eye - it features frozen raspberries and marzipan baked with a crumble-like mixture of oats, sugar and flour. The result was layers of fruit and crumble with a really strong almond flavour, but without the excess juices you often get in a soft fruit crumble.

My only quibble with the recipe is that it was impossible to mix 70g of grated butter and 150g grated marzipan into 100g flour to make a breadcrumb-like mixture. I had to add the rest of the crumble ingredients to the mix and rub the butter and marzipan into that. I was slightly short of the required weight of raspberries, so added half  a grated apple to each layer of fruit.

The dessert was only lightly sweetened, although the quality of the marzipan will affect the overall sweetness - the marzipan I used was 60% almonds. The dessert was delicious with creme fraiche, as suggested, and I thought it better eaten slightly warm, rather than straight from the oven.

It felt quite decadent to be eating raspberries in January, but frozen ones are quite good value and make a change from the usual stodgy winter desserts (or in our case, a change from the self-imposed diet of yogurt for dessert!).

Stone Fruit Yogurt Cake

The scare over E. coli carried on Spanish fruit and veg has had one benefit for me - loads of 'reduced to clear' peaches and nectarines in the supermarket, as well as salad stuff. Now that the Spaniards are deemed not to be at blame, I have no worries about using their imported produce - well washed of course, if eaten raw.

This Stone Fruit Yogurt Cake from Dan Lepard was the starting point for using some of the peaches I bought. This is a cake which is very much liked by C at Cake, Crumbs and Cooking, and every time I saw a version there it made me want to try it, but this is the first opportunity I've had to bake it using what I had in stock, rather than having to buy fruit especially for it.

If there's a choice of peaches or nectarines to eat raw, the nectarines, with their smooth skin, always win out over fuzzy peaches, which meant that the peaches were getting past their best. I skinned four small peaches for this recipe, using three sliced for the fruit topping, and one chopped and added to the cake batter. To improve the colour and flavour, I added about 50g of frozen raspberries to the topping and another 50g to the cake batter.

The instructions say to line the cake tin with foil, and then oil the foil. I cannot stress how important this is, especially if using a springform tin, and how important it is to make sure there are no holes in the foil. Despite using extra thick foil, and treating it really carefully, I must have torn it somewhere, as there was an escape of sugary fruit juices which burnt onto the oven floor during cooking, with a quite unpleasant smell. The foil also needs to be well-oiled, as I left some of the fruit behind, stuck to the foil, when I turned out the cake, and had to quickly put the pieces back into place on top of the cake - talk about a tough jigsaw! The sticking might have more to do with losing the juices during baking than not oiling the foil well, but it's a point to note for the future

This is a really lovely cake, moist and lemony with the fruit adding extra flavour and texture. The frozen raspberries had thawed by the time they were mixed into the batter and the juice gave little ripples of pink throughout the cake, as well as concentrated bursts of flavour from the fruit. The peaches alone did not have a strong flavour, but adding the raspberries gave a complimentary boost to the overall flavour.

I didn't get the really fine, close texture that C got with her cake, but I suspect this was because I hurried the mixing process, and didn't let my butter warm up enough before creaming it with the sugar. Because I've been baking with oil a lot, recently, I'd forgotten how important this stage is. And don't worry that I'm sabotaging CT's diet, he wouldn't eat this sort of cake anyway - fresh fruit is not one of his greatest loves! He's finishing up the previous chocolate cake while the rest of us eat this one.