Foodie Bob

This is a really easy to make Cherry Bakewell cake which uses the “All in one” method. It’s great if, like me, you just love the taste of traditional Bakewell pies and tarts but don’t want to mess around with pastry.

Cherry Bakewell Cake

Ingredients for the Cake:

• 200g butter (Softened)
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 100g ground almonds
• 100g self-raising flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1/2tsp almond extract
• 4 large eggs

To Make the cake:

1. Heat oven to 180C or 160C for a fan oven
2. Grease two 8″ (20cm) round baking tins.
3. Mix all the cake ingredients together in a bowl with an electric whisk or mixer until it all combines into a smooth mixture.
4. Place half of the mixture into each tin and gently smooth down the top
5. Cook for around 30 minutes until the cake is golden and the top is springy. You could also use a cake tester to test the centre
6. Remove from the oven, leave to cool for a few minutes and then remove the cakes from the tins and place them on a cooling rack.

Once the cake has cooled, you will need to make the icing:

Ingredients for the top and filling:

• 180g icing sugar
• 5-10tsp water or lemon juice
• Jam (Cherry is best)
• Glace Cherries

The best jam to use for this recipe is Morello Cherry but I often make this cake on the spur of the moment so don’t always have some in. In this case I just use whatever I have around the house (usually Strawberry!).

For the icing you can use either water or lemon juice – personally I prefer to use lemon juice.

To finish off the cake:

1. Place one half of the cake onto a serving plate.
2. Generously cover the top of this half with your jam.
3. Place the other half of the cake on top.
4. Get a large bowl and sieve the icing sugar into it – trying to get as much of it as possible all over the worktop (or is that just me?)
5. Add about half of the water/lemon juice and stir until thick. I find a metal knife the best for this.
6. Keep adding a little water/juice and stirring until you get a smooth thick paste that *just* starts to drop off the knife when you lift it up
7. Spread the icing over the top and close to the edge, you want the icing to just start to dribble over the sides a little
8. Cut 4 or 5 glace cherries in half and place them on the top of the cake.
9. If you like flaked almonds, you could place these on top instead.

And that’s it! Enjoy!