This week celebrated the point in the year when my parents finally decided that the weather had cooled enough to put our aga back on...hoorah! I have spent the whole summer without an oven and as a result have done very little baking outside of work. Over the summer i have been thinking up different recipes for 'Cake of the Week', at the Cafe. As well as; Orange, Rose and pistachio cake, Blueberry and Apple Crumble Cake, i also created a Norfolk Raspberry Bakewell Cake.
As well as being a damn good cake, it also managed to win over the grumpiest fisherman in my town. He came into the Cafe everyday for a week to have a slice and has asked me to make one for him, which pleased me greatly! If you are still unsure whether to try this recipe i can promise you this is the most ridiculously easy recipe. I have designed this cake like a victoria sponge but thought it looked especially nice baked in a square tin. Cut this cake into 12, if you are generous enough to share, and this will leave you with 12 hefty fingers of cake.
6 medium eggs
400g self raising flour
400g golden caster sugar (or light brown sugar will do!)
400g stork (or softened butter)
3 tsp of almond essence
300g of raspberries ( I have used fresh Norfolk raspberries but frozen are much much cheaper and available all year round from supermarkets)
1 jar of raspberry jam
A handful of flaked almonds
50g icing sugar
A squeeze of lemon juice
1. First of all cream together your sugar and your stork until completely mixed together. Weigh out your self raising flour and add 1/3 of this to your sugar and butter along with 2 of the eggs. Fold your eggs and flour into the mixture, once mixed repeat the process until all of your eggs and flour has been mixed in.
2. Now is the time to add the almond essence and 200g of the raspberries into your cake mixture. If you have been using a Kitchen Aid or hand whisk i would recommend swapping to a wooden spoon or spatular in order to gently fold in the essence and raspberries without breaking up the raspberries too much.
3. Spoon out your mixture into your ready lined square tin and use your spatular to level the top in order to create an even bake. Scatter the remaining raspberries and flaked almonds on top of your cake and then bake your cake at 165 for 1 hour. Depending on your oven it may take slightly more than an hour but don't forget to use a probe or skewer to ensure the cake is cooked all the way through!
4. Once cooked, leave to cool in the tin and do not take out of the tin until completely cool. Once cool, carefully remove from your tin and put onto a plate.
5. Now cut your cake in half and cover the top of the bottom half of your cake in raspberry jam. I have been lucky enough to use my mum's home made raspberry jam but if you are not as fortunate to have any homemade kicking about shop bought will do just fine
6. Place the top half of the cake on top of your now jammy bottom. In my mind i have always seen bakewell cakes with the signature white drizzle on top. To do this add a generous squeeze of lemon juice to 50g of icing sugar and stir in. Keep adding lemon juice until the icing starts to become runny but stop before it becomes translucent. Simply take a spoonful of icing and hover over the cake, waving the spoon back and forth to create drizzles of icing
I have chosen to make this cake with raspberries as they are firstly, delicious but more importantly they are in season. This cake recipe is so easily adaptable with fruits such as plum, gooseberry, cherry etc. So long as you keep your sponge almond flavoured there is no reason why you can not play around with flavours. Why not have a go at making some homemade jam to really add something really special to this very simple sponge, Happy Baking!
