xmas week 2024 - sticky gingerbread bundt cake

xmas week 2024 - sticky gingerbread bundt cake

17 Dec 2024

Is it even Christmas if you don't make gingerbread in some form? This year rather than gingerbread men or a gingerbread tree, I made a gingerbread bundt cake, because I really wanted to test out the cake goop I had stored in the fridge.

Gingerbread usually contains some form of sugar syrup that when baked welds the cake firmly to the cake pan. Trust me I know because I've had any number of baking disasters in the past. For the recipe I turned to Belinda Jeffery and a recipe that I found in a Delicious magazine many years ago. It's a triple ginger cake because it contains both ground ginger, fresh ginger as well as crystallised ginger. I'm not a huge fan of molasses so I diluted it's flavour by the addition of some golden syrup to the mix. 

Thankfully the cake goop worked a charm and the cake unmoulded pretty easily however if you're not in the mood for a bundt cake, this makes a 17cm square cake.

Here's the recipe for you which makes either a 5 cup bundt cake or a 17cm square cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make an 8 inch cake, you can find the recipe here.

Sticky Gingerbread Bundt Cake - Belinda Jeffery

Ingredients

150g plain flour, plus extra to dust
Pinch sea salt flakes
scant ½ tsp bicarb of soda

1¼ tsp ground ginger (as fresh as possible)
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
pinch ground nutmeg
5 small lumps crystallised ginger, chopped, plus extra chopped to serve
85g room temperature unsalted butter

105g brown sugar
105g molasses/treacle or golden syrup
1½ (75g) eggs
2½ tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1¼ tsp finely grated lemon zest
60ml buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Lemon-Butter Glaze
80g icing sugar
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
15 g unsalted butter, melted and warm
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp warm water

To decorate

Crystallised ginger, chopped, to serve

Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C, conventional. Grease and flour a bundt pan then place in the fridge until needed. If using a square tin, grease then line with baking paper.

Sift flour, soda and ground spices into a large bowl. Stir in the crystallised ginger, then set aside. Place butter and brown sugar in another bowl and beat with an electric beater on medium speed for 3-4 minutes until fluffy. Add molasses/treacle and beat until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition – don’t worry if the batter looks curdled, it will smooth out when you add the flour. Mix in fresh ginger and zest, then gently beat in the flour mixture. Add buttermilk and vanilla and beat on low speed until just combined.

Scrape into the prepared pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top feels springy and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then carefully loosen around the sides and invert onto the rack to cool completely.

Lemon butter glaze

Sift the icing sugar and cinnamon into a small bowl. Add the melted butter, lemon juice and water and mix with a spoon until smooth and the consistency of  honey. Ice the cake and allow the glaze to set before serving. If liked, you can top the cake with the extra crystallised ginger. 

Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days, or in the fridge for up to 10 days, if you prefer it stickier.

This is one of those cakes that tastes better as it matures and it's a recipe I will certainly be adding to my repertoire. It was, as Belinda described it, a really good gingerbread.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Xmas week 2024.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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pistachio and lime syrup cake

pistachio and lime syrup cake

16 Aug 2023

I love cookbooks but I ran out of shelf space long ago. Last year I realised I could borrow cookbooks from the library and scan the recipes that appealled to me, before returning the book for someone else to enjoy.

That's how I came upon this recipe from Belinda Jeffery which I found in her latest book, 'In Belinda’s Kitchen – Essential Recipes'. As I'm going away soon, I wanted to use pantry staples and items already in my fridge, like the 4 limes I found lurking in the vegetable drawer, so this pistachio and lime syrup cake fitted the brief. 

Belinda writes foolproof recipes, so I knew this cake would turn out perfectly as long as I followed her instructions although I did deviate from the recipe a little. As I had to pull out the food processor to grind the pistachios, I decided to make the cake batter in there as well and it turned out just fine. Instead of using pomegranate seeds, I used dried rose petals which were already in the cupboard and of course I halved the recipe to suit my small tin.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake. If you'd like to make a larger cake, the original recipe can be found here. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Pistachio and lime syrup cake - makes a 17cm cake
Ingredients
30g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
50g pistachios, finely ground
1½ tbs finely grated zest, approximately 2 large limes 
60g almond meal 
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
110g caster sugar
2 × 60g eggs, at room temperature
1 tbs dried rose petals to decorate, optional
rich cream or thick Greek-style yoghurt, to serve

Syrup and topping
45g caster sugar
¼ cup (60ml) fresh lime juice (from about 2 large limes), strained 
45g pistachios, roughly chopped

Method
Preheat your oven to 170°C, conventional. Butter a 17cm round cake tin, line the base with buttered baking paper then dust the tin with flour. 

Tip the flour, baking powder, ground pistachios, lime zest and almond meal into a medium-sized bowl. Whisk them together with a balloon whisk for a minute or so, then set the bowl aside. 

Put the butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer (or use a hand-held electric beater) and beat them on medium speed for about 4 minutes, stopping and scraping down the sides occasionally, until the mixture looks creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, allowing each egg to be absorbed before adding the next. (Don’t worry if the mixture looks a little curdled after adding the last egg – it will come together again when you add the dry ingredients.) Tip in the flour mixture and mix everything together on low speed until it is just combined – be careful not to over-mix it, or the cake may be a bit tough. Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and smooth the top. 

Bake the cake for 45–50 minutes, or until it springs back when lightly pressed in the centre and a fine skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Transfer it to a wire rack and leave it to cool a little in the tin.

When the cake is lukewarm, make the syrup. To do this, put the sugar and lime juice into a small saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the chopped pistachios, increase the heat and bring the mixture to the boil. Turn the cake out onto a serving plate and peel away the baking paper. Slowly spoon the hot pistachio and lime syrup evenly over the top, then leave the cake to cool completely. 

Just before serving, scatter the cake with dried rose petals, if using. Serve with softly whipped cream or yoghurt. 

I love pistachios, so I knew I would love this cake, and the addition of the lime syrup makes for one zesty cake.

I shared the cake with my neighbours and they loved it as well.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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coconut almond cake with chocolate ganache

coconut almond cake with chocolate ganache

30 Apr 2018

I made this cake at least 4 weeks ago and it's been lurking in the freezer ever since. It seemed criminal to leave the cake in my freezer for another 6 weeks while I go on holidays so on Sunday, I defrosted the cake and topped it with some chocolate ganache.



This is not a new cake recipe. It's Belinda Jeffery's recipe for a buttery flourless almond coconut cake baked in a loaf tin then topped with a water chocolate ganache recipe I found in 'Sweet' by Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. My only contribution to the recipe was the sprinkle of toasted almond flakes.



This is the third time I've made the cake and it's really easy to make. Although I've written the recipe as it appears in 'Sweet' I used the melt and mix method from Belinda's book, 'Mix and Bake'.




I had a few problems with the water ganache seizing up on me. While it looks glossy I'm not sure I'd use the chocolate ganache recipe again. My own chocolate glaze is way easier to make and maybe if I add a little glucose syrup to my own recipe, the glaze will stay glossy as well.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a small loaf tin or 18cm cake. If you'd like to make a larger loaf cake or 23cm cake, then just double all the ingredients but keep the cooking time the same. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 gm and my oven is a conventional oven, not fan forced. If your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the cooking temperature by 20°C. 

Belinda’s Flourless Coconut and Chocolate Cake by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, inspired by Belinda Jeffery.

Ingredients

100g unsalted butter

125g caster sugar

30g desiccated coconut

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch salt

2x 60g eggs

90g almond meal

2 tablespoons toasted flaked almonds

Water ganache
60g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), roughly chopped
25g caster sugar
25g glucose or corn syrup
45mls water
Scraped seeds of ¼ vanilla pod
25g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small cubes

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Grease the base and sides of a small loaf pan or a 18cm round springform pan and line with parchment paper, then set aside.

Place butter, sugar, coconut, vanilla extract and salt in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment in place. Beat on medium-high speed, until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Turn the speed on low, add the almond meal and mix until just combined.

Scrape the mixture into the pan and bake for 40 minutes if using the loaf pan or 50 minutes if using the round pan, or until the cake is golden brown on top and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and set aside to cool in the pan before inverting onto a serving plate. Set aside until completely cool.

To make the water ganache
Just before serving, place the chocolate in a medium bowl and set aside. Put the sugar and glucose syrup in a small saucepan and place over medium-low heat. Stir to combine and, when the sugar has melted, increase the heat to medium and bring to a boil, stirring gently from time to time. Continue to boil for about 7 minutes, until the colour is a pale amber. Remove from the heat and carefully pour in the water. Don’t worry if the mix seizes; just return the pan to the heat, add the vanilla seeds and stir gently and continuously until it returns to a boil and the sugar has melted again. Remove from the heat and wait for a minute before pouring the water-caramel over the chocolate. Allow to stand for about 3 minutes, and then whisk to combine. Add the butter, a couple of cubes at a time, whisking after each addition. Continue until all the butter has been added, whisking to combine until the consistency is that of golden syrup. Spread the ganache over the top of the cake, letting it run down the sides a little. If liked, decorate the top of the cake with a few toasted almond cakes.

The cake cuts easily and it's lovely and moist and it will keep well for up to 5 days in an airtight container. 

I'm flying to Paris on Friday so hopefully I'll have some images of Paris to share with you next week.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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ANZAC biscuits 2018

ANZAC biscuits 2018

23 Apr 2018

I was planning to share a cake with you that's been lurking in the freezer waiting to be iced for the past few weeks but when I realised ANZAC day was just around the corner what else could I do but whip up a batch of ANZAC biscuits.



These biscuits are so easy to make that just about any-one can make a batch. I had everything I needed in the fridge or cupboard and once measured, the biscuits take about 5 minutes to put together. I used the recipe from Belinda Jeffery's book, Mix and Bake but I added a bit of grated lemon rind to the mixture for extra flavour and a macadamia half for good measure.




Here's the recipe for you which makes 24-30 Anzac biscuits. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.



Anzac Biscuits - make 24-30
Ingredients
1 cup regular rolled oats (not quick-cooking oats)
2/3 cup shredded or desiccated coconut 
1 cup plain flour 
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 tsp grated lemon rind
125g (4 oz) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
2 tablespoons boiling water 
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
handful macadamia nuts, halved

Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper and set them aside. 

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix together the oats, coconut, flour, caster sugar and grated lemon rind.

Put the chopped butter and golden syrup into a small saucepan over low heat (or you can do this step in the microwave) and stir occasionally until the butter has melted. Remove the pan from the heat. Mix the boiling water and bicarb soda in a cup and add to the butter mixture. Ad the vanilla extract the pour the butter mix into the oat mixture and stir until thoroughly combined. 

Scoop out tablespoons of the mixture onto the lined oven trays, leaving about 2 inches as the mixture spreads. Flatten the biscuits a little. 

Bake the biscuits in the preheated oven for 16-20 minutes, or until they're a deep golden brown but still soft. I always rotate the biscuit tray halfway through the cooking time so the biscuits cook evenly. Leave the biscuits to cool on the trays for a few minutes, then carefully transfer them to wire racks to cool completely. The biscuits keep well in an airtight container for up to a week and I think they're at their best served with a nice cup of tea.

The countdown is on. Just 12 more sleeps until I fly to Paris and so much that needs to be done before hand!

See you all again next week with what will be my last baking post for a little while.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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tropical hummingbird cake

tropical hummingbird cake

12 Mar 2018

A few years ago I made a version of this cake but I found it too sweet, so I decided to remake the cake reducing the quantity of sugar.



I made the cake early one Sunday morning; I hadn't slept well and I was tired. I tasted the batter before I spooned it into the tin and found it not quite sweet enough so I added an extra tablespoon of sugar. 



It wasn't until the cake was in the oven and I was doing the washing up that I discovered the sugar I'd carefully weighed and measured the night before still sitting on the kitchen table. Oh dear.



It was too late to do anything about the cake so I hoped that the natural sweetness of the banana and pineapple in the batter would be enough to make the cake palatable but just in case I slathered the cake with loads of cream cheese icing.



Here's the recipe for you which makes a 18 cm cake. To make a 23cm cake just double all the ingredients but the baking time remains the same. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. 

Tropical Hummingbird Layer Cake, adapted from Belinda Jeffery’s Mix and Bake.
Ingredients 

¾ cup SR flour 

¼ cup Plain flour 

pinch salt 

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon 

pinch ground nutmeg 

25g roasted macadamias, coarsely chopped 

1 egg 

½ cup caster sugar 

½ cup vegetable oil 

½ teaspoon vanilla extract 

⅓ cup canned crushed pineapple in natural juice, undrained 

⅔ cup mashed banana 

Cream Cheese Icing 

60g softened unsalted butter, diced

125 g softened cream cheese, diced

2 cups icing sugar, sifted
  
To decorate (optional)

Toasted macadamias coarsely chopped/passionfruit pulp and diced mango

Method 

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease and line the base of a 18cm round cake tin with baking paper. Lightly dust the tin with flour.

Sift the flours, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg into a large bowl. Stir in the chopped macadamia nuts. In another bowl, beat the egg lightly with the sugar. Whisk in the oil and vanilla extract until well combined. Add the pineapple and mashed bananas and mix thoroughly. 

Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir them together to form a batter. If the batter is too thick, add a little more pineapple juice. Bake for 50 – 60 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. Cool the cake before turning out of the tin. Using a serrated knife, halve the cooled cake horizontally. Sandwich the two cakes together with about a third of the icing. Spread the remaining icing on top of the cake.

For icing, place the butter, cream cheese and icing sugar into the food processor and process until smooth before returning the mixture to the fridge to firm up.  

I decorated the cake with toasted macadamia nuts, diced mango and passionfruit pulp and took the cake into work keeping my fingers crossed that that the cake was edible. Thankfully cream cheese icing covers up a multitude of sins but next time I'll try and follow the recipe, exactly.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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ginger cake with salted caramel sauce

ginger cake with salted caramel sauce

18 Aug 2016

I love all things ginger especially ginger cake. When I came home from Iceland the cake tin was bare and I was a bit too jet lagged to bake anything complicated. I found this ginger cake recipe from April Bloomfield and this Cider Five Spice Cake with Caramel Sauce recipe from Nigella Lawson and wondered what would happen if I combined the two recipes. This cake is the love child from those 2 recipes topped with some caramel sauce from the lovely Belinda Jeffery's book Mix and Bake.



It's an easy cake to make. You spend more time weighing and measuring the ingredients than you do mixing the cake. I've made the cake twice now, once in a bundt tin and I won't lie when I say it was a struggle to get the cake out from the tin. The second time I made it in a loaf tin lined with baking paper and of course getting that cake from the tin was a breeze.



I upped the ginger quotient so the cake does have a bit of a kick. If you're not so keen on ginger you could reduce the ground ginger by a teaspoon. The cake tastes great as it is or you could top it with a simple lemon icing. Or you could do as I did and serve the cake warm as a dessert topped with some stewed apple, caramel sauce and a dollop of Greek yoghurt. Absolutely delish.



Here's the recipe for you adapted from recipes by April Bloomfield and Nigella Lawson. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional gas oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Ginger Cake with Salted Caramel Sauce - makes a 16 cm round cake/small loaf or bundt cake.

Cake Ingredients

125 mls ginger beer

125 mls golden syrup or treacle

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1¼ cup plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 tsp ground ginger

¾ tsp ground cinnamon

pinch ground cloves

pinch salt

⅓ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup (50g) firmly packed brown sugar

3 tsps finely grated fresh ginger

1 large egg

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C°. Grease a small bundt tin or grease and line a 16cm cake tin with baking paper. Set the tin to one side while you prepare the cake.

Warm the ginger beer and golden syrup or treacle in a small saucepan or in the microwave in a microwaveable bowl until the golden syrup melts. Carefully stir in the bicarbonate of soda as the mixture will froth up. Set to one side to let the mixture cool a little.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt into a medium size bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine the oil, the brown sugar and the grated ginger. Mix in the egg and beat till smooth. Mix a third of the dry ingredients into the egg mixture alternating with the ginger beer mixture until you have added all the flour and liquid, beating as you go to make a smooth batter. Scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl well to make sure there aren’t any pockets of flour.

Pour the batter, which will be quite runny, into the prepared tin. Place in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes if using a bundt tin or approximately 50-55 minutes if you're using a regular cake tin. When the cake is ready, it will start to come away from the sides of the tin and a cake tester should come out clean. Transfer the cake to a wire rack for about 30 minutes before turning out. If you baked a bundt cake, you may have some trouble getting it to release from the tin. You can use your fingers to help prise the cake away from the edges of the tin and turn out. Leave the cake to cool completely before wrapping in baking paper and cling wrap as it tastes best if eaten the following day.

If you like, you can serve this cake with some salted caramel sauce (Belinda Jeffery recipe).

Caramel sauce

½ cup cream
110g firmly packed soft brown sugar
35g caster sugar
30ml maple syrup
30ml golden syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch sea salt

Method

To make the caramel sauce, put all the ingredients except the sea salt into a smallish, heavy-based saucepan. Sit the pan over high heat and stir the mixture just until the sugar dissolves, then stop stirring and bring it to the boil. Let it bubble rapidly until a sugar thermometer registers 108°C. Take the pan off the heat and leave it to cool for at least 20 minutes then add a pinch of sea salt to balance out the sweetness. You can use the sauce warm, or store it in the fridge in a tightly sealed container for up to 2 weeks. It tends to separate a little when it’s cold, but just give it a good stir and it comes back together. Makes about a cup.

If you'd like to make a large bundt cake or a 8-9 inch cake, double all the cake and the sauce ingredients. The cooking times will remain the same.

See you all again next week with some images from Reykjavik.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2016 - passover maple syrup pecan pie

passover week 2016 - passover maple syrup pecan pie

14 Apr 2016

Last year I discovered a pastry recipe in Belinda Jeffery's book, Mix and Bake, that could be adapted for Passover. I made some little fig frangipane tartlets and they turned out quite well. Emboldened I thought I'd try making something a little larger this year and decided to make a pecan pie. I used maple syrup in the filling as corn syrup isn't Passover friendly. 



The pastry is very delicate but somehow I managed to get in into the pie tin. Don't even try to wrap it around the rolling pin before easing it into the pie plate as that technique won't work here. Either pat the pastry into the tin using your hands or roll it between 2 sheets of non stick paper and upend the pastry into the tin while holding your breath and crossing your fingers for luck!



The pie came out of the oven looking pretty good but the crust is so delicate if you look at it, it shatters. I was worried I wouldn't be able to successfully cut a slice but chilling it helped to firm the pastry.



Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 




Passover Maple Pecan Pie - makes a 20-23 cm tart

Crust
120g almond meal
Pinch of salt
3½ tablespoons Passover baking mix (equal quantities superfine matzo meal and potato flour)
75g very cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks (I'd reduce this to 60g next time)

Filling
½ cup caster sugar
2 tbs potato flour (this helps to set the filling)
3 eggs
1 cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons melted butter
1½ cups (175g) toasted pecans

Method 
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. For the crust, put the almond meal, salt and Passover baking mix into food processor and whiz together until combined. Add butter and whiz some more until it forms coarse breadcrumbs. Press the crumbs into the 20 - 23cm flan tin or if you like, roll the pastry out between 2 sheets of non-stick baking paper before wrangling the pastry into the tin. It will crack so you'll need to patch it. Put the pie crust in the fridge to chill while you make the filling.

To make the filling, combine the sugar, the potato flour, the eggs, syrup and the melted butter. Chop approximately ¾ of the pecans, add to the mixture and stir to combine. Pour carefully into the prepared tin. Arrange the remaining pecans decoratively on the top. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour at 180°C or until the filling is well browned and just set. Remove to a wire rack and cool. Once the pie has cooled return it to the fridge and leave overnight to allow the pastry to firm. Serve with a dollop of cream for a job well done!




The verdict - the pastry is very brittle so next time I wouldn't bake this in a pie tin. Instead I'd use a fluted 20-23cm flan tin with a removable base that way it would be easier to cut and serve a neat slice. As the pastry is so delicate, the filling although delicious soaked into the pastry resulting in a soggy bottom. In the end, the pastry probably works better for little tarts than one large pie so I guess my search for the perfect passover shortcrust pastry continues.

If I can get a cake baked, cooled and styled in time I'll see you all again tomorrow with another recipe from Passover week. If not then I'll see you again next week for Part II of Passover Week.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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passover week 2016 - buttery flourless almond and coconut cake

passover week 2016 - buttery flourless almond and coconut cake

13 Apr 2016

Sometime the recipes I use for Passover Week are old favourites that I've adapted. Some recipes are ones I've found that are conveniently flourless.





This recipe falls into the second category and comes from one of my favourite food writers, Belinda Jeffery. 






It's a melt and mix cake so it's easy to make and disappeared in a flash when I took it into work. 





It can be served as is with a cup of tea for afternoon tea or dressed up for dessert with some oven roasted fruit and a dollop of cream.



Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Flourless Almond, Coconut and Vanilla Cake - makes a 17 cm cake. To make a 23 cm cake, double all the ingredients but cook for the same length of time.

Ingredients
90g almond meal
30g desiccated coconut
pinch salt
125g caster sugar
2 x 60g eggs
The seeds of ½ a vanilla bean
100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 tablespoons flaked almonds
Passover icing sugar, (optional), for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter a 17cm spring form cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

In a medium-sized bowl whisk together the almond meal, desiccated coconut, salt and sugar with a balloon whisk to get rid of any lumps. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla seeds and the cooled butter until it is incorporated. Tip the butter mixture into the almond mixture and stir together to form a slightly runny batter. Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and spread it out evenly, then scatter the flaked almonds over the top.

Put the tin into the preheated oven and bake the cake for about 40 minutes, or until the top of the cake springs back slowly when you press it gently. Cool the cake in the tin on a wire rack.

Once the cake is cool, invert it onto the rack, remove the tin and paper and invert it again onto a serving plate. Dust the top lightly with icing sugar, if liked, before serving.

A final photo for you.



I served the cake with some plums and pears I roasted with some finely orange rind, orange juice, a cinnamon stick, maple syrup and a dash of brown sugar. Delicious!

See you all tomorrow with another Passover week recipe.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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