Cherry Bakewell Cake

I love bakewell tart so I can't believe it's taken me this long to come up with my own cake version! This has all the classic bakewell flavours of fragrant almonds, fruity cherry and sweet icing, but is also incredibly easy to make. Even with my ropey icing skills it still has a wow factor and is a real crowd pleaser. 

I've used cherries in this recipe, but you can replace with raspberries if you'd prefer. I've also held back a little on the sugar in the sponge, just because there's so many other sweet elements. Despite that the sponge itself is beautiful, biscuity, light and fluffy but with a yielding moistness. It's so good that I'd definitely consider using it for any other sponge based recipes (Leaving out the almond extract).

Prep Time: 20 Mins

Baking Time: 25-30 Mins

200g Unsalted Butter (Softened)

175g Caster Sugar

4 Medium Eggs

1tsp Almond Extract

100g Ground Almonds

1/2tsp Baking Powder

125g Self Raising Flour

8 Maraschino (Cocktail) cherries

250g Cherry Jam

125g Icing Sugar

2tbsp Water

2tbsp Toasted Flaked Almonds

To start, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and grease/line the base of two 20cm sandwich tins. Cream together the butter and the sugar until smooth, then beat in the eggs one at a time followed by the almond extract. Fold through the ground almonds, then sift in the flour and baking powder. Mix it together until you are left with a nicely combined batter. Spoon the mix equally into two tins and bake in the centre of the oven (They should both fit on the same shelf of most ovens!) for 25-30 minutes, until a metal skewer can be cleanly removed from the middle of one of the cakes. Remove from the oven and leave in the tins for 30 minutes, then carefully turn them out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

When the cakes are cool you can finish it all off, which is pretty much just an assembly job! Remove your cherries from the jar and leave on some kitchen paper, which should soak up any excess juice. Take your two cakes and place one on your serving plate. Spoon the jam on top, then evenly smooth it out nearly to the edge. You don't have to use all of the jam if you think you have enough and leave about half a centimetre at the edge, as the jam will spread a little when you put the other cake on top. Place the second cake carefully on top and very lightly press it down to secure it. If some jame oozes out from the side don't worry, it gives it more of a home made look! Mix your icing sugar together with the water until completely combined (no little lumps of icing sugar please!), then gradually pour it on top of the cake, gently smoothing it towards the edges with a butter knife or the back of your spoon. Some of the icing will almost certainly spill over the edge of the cake but that's absolutely fine. Take your cherries, halve them and arrange them on top of the icing. Finally scatter over the flaked almonds and you're done. Well done you!