Almond, coconut and raspberry cake
SERVES 8–10
Oh, what a week! You know that feeling when you start out a week with a plan (quite probably my first mistake) and everything starts to go pear-shaped from there? Well, this has been one of those weeks.
There has been laughter and some tears, quiet moments and times of avid conversation, a fair bit of ‘will we, won’t we’, and underpinning it all, there has been food. I often say to my husband that I think I was brought into this world to feed people, big and small, for my default position in both happy and challenging times is to head into the kitchen and cook. It grounds me in a way that nothing else can – I feel my shoulders drop, my focus sharpen, my thoughts settle, and then there is the quiet joy of sharing whatever it is that I’ve made with others. It always turns my world the right way up again.
This slender cake, with its beautiful moist texture and delicate flavour, is a complete and utter winner and is going on the menu for my next cooking classes. Funny how life works out at times, isn’t it?
250g unsalted butter
100g almond meal
50g desiccated coconut
70g plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
7 large (from 70g eggs) egg whites, at room temperature 250g icing sugar mixture
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract icing sugar, for dusting fresh or dried rose petals, to decorate, optional softly whipped cream, crème fraîche or ice-cream, to serve RASPBERRY PUREE
150g fresh (or frozen) raspberries
60g caster sugar
12g cornflour
1 RASPBERRY PUREE Put the raspberries and sugar into a small saucepan and gently mix them together. Leave them to sit for 15 minutes to help the raspberries release their juices. Sprinkle the cornflour over the berries, then sit the pan over medium heat and bring the mixture to the boil, stirring regularly. Adjust the heat so it bubbles gently for 1 minute, frequently scraping the base of the pan with a spoon, until the mixture is thick and a little darker, then remove the pan from the heat. Pour the mixture into a heatproof bowl and allow it to cool without stirring. (If you stir at this stage you run the risk of the cornflour breaking down and the mixture becoming runny.) The raspberry puree can be used as soon as it’s cool or can be kept in the fridge in a sealed container for up to 1 week, just return it to room temperature before using it.
2 Preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Butter a 23–24cm springform tin and line the base and sides with buttered baking paper.
3 Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium–low heat. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the butter to cool until it’s lukewarm.
4 Tip the almond meal, coconut, flour and baking powder into a bowl and whisk them together with a balloon whisk for 1 minute or until they’re thoroughly combined. Set the bowl aside.
5 Tip the eggwhites into a clean, dry mixing bowl and sift in the icing sugar mixture and salt, then use a hand-held electric beater on medium speed to combine the mixture until it’s just smooth, but not foamy or fluffy. Add the almond mixture and beat briefly again until just combined. Finally, with the beaters going, pour in the cooled butter and vanilla, and mix until combined. The batter will be quite runny, which is as it should be. Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and spoon dollops of Raspberry Puree evenly over the top.
6 Bake the cake for 40–45 minutes or until the centre springs back slightly when gently pressed and a fine skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
7 Let the cake cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then carefully remove the sides of the tin and rest a flat plate on top of the cake. Invert the cake onto this, then ease away the base and baking paper and carefully invert the cake again onto a wire rack.
Leave it to cool completely.
8 To serve, carefully transfer the cake to a serving plate or cake stand, dust with icing sugar and scatter with rose petals. Serve with softly whipped cream, crème fraîche or ice-cream.