APPLE AND WALNUT CAKE WITH TREACLE ICING

For our most recent meeting of Loire Valley Clandestine Cake Club the theme was “the taste of autumn”.  For me that means reluctantly leaving behind the apricots and strawberries of summer and indulging in the warmth of spices, nuts and autumn fruits.  Ginger and treacle remind me of Bonfire Night, cinnamon and cloves bring back lovely memories of making a Christmas cake with my grandmother.  It’s a truly wonderful, aromatic time of year.

In the garden of our new French house we have fruit trees, something that I have never been lucky enough to have before.  Red plums, cherries, golden mirabelles, apples and walnuts are all there.  By the time we moved in the plums and cherries were all done but I was able to harvest a small basket of apples and two huge boxes of walnuts.

Sadly the walnut tree is doomed.  It is way too close to the little house – the renovation project that seems always come with any old French house.  We have to have a new fosse (septic tank), as the existing one was condemned when we bought the house, and the roots of the walnut tree will interfere with the positioning of the new system and the drains for the little house.

So for this year we have a bumper harvest of walnuts but from next year we will be back to raiding the trees around the village for a few bagfuls.  C’est la vie!

I was keen to bake a cake that used both the apples and the walnuts from our new home so Googled  “apple and walnut cake” and found this recipe on the BBC Good Food website.  The cake was simple to make and turned out really well in our makeshift oven arrangement.  I took notice of some of the comments on the website and decided to reduce the amount of treacle in the icing, just a bit.

In France I can’t find golden caster sugar so I just used white, and the soft brown sugar available here looks something like a cross between the light and dark varieties you can get in the UK.  It’s tempting to bring ingredients to France from the UK but sooner or later I’m going to have to make do with what’s in the shops here – it will be interesting to see if there’s a huge difference in the flavour if I make it again with the exact ingredients in the recipe.

On the table it could be mistaken for a coffee and walnut cake, but looks can be deceiving!  The apple and walnut flavours were clearly distinct and the icing was delicious.  Definitely a cake I shall be making again and the icing could be used on many other cakes I think.

I am also offering this cake as my entry for this month’s Random Recipe Challenge from Dom at Bellau Kitchen, whose theme for October is an internet search.  You can read the details here.

Ingredients

300g plain flour

1tsp ground cinnamon

½tsp bicarb

140g soft dark brown sugar

50g golden caster sugar

250ml sunflower oil

4 eggs

4 small dessert apples, unpeeled and grated

100g walnuts, roughly chopped

For the icing

100g softened butter

50g soft dark brown sugar

1 dessert spoon black treacle

200g full fat cream cheese

Method

Preheat the oven to 150C / 130 fan / gas mk 2.  Butter and line the base of two 20cm cake tins.

Put the flour, spice and bicarb into a large bowl.  Stir in the two sugars, making sure there are no lumps.  Add the eggs, apple and oil and beat well together until combined.  Fold in the walnuts and divide between the two baking tins.

Bake for 45 minutes or until done.  Cool in the tins for a few minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, put all the ingredients together in a food processor and process until smooth and creamy.  Use half to sandwich the two cakes together and spread the other half on top of the cake.  Decorate with walnut halves if you like.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.

BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER – AND A COTTAGE PIE

Right in the middle of our house hunting adventures in France we had to dash back to the UK to take delivery of our beautiful new hob and oven.  Beautiful they are indeed.

The oven is the same as the ones currently being used in the Bake Off tent and the hob is an induction model.  We were thinking of having a gas hob, which  is what we have always been used to, but although the gas supply is fairly near to the oven end of the kitchen getting it fitted would have meant a lot of disruption and expense, not to mention the destruction of part of my lovely new kitchen, so we opted for induction.  We are very pleased with it so far, having had it for a total of one day!

I was thinking there would be no time for baking again this month, the final stage of our two-nation house moving exercise being very near to its conclusion, then I picked up the little recipe book that came with the new oven and flipped the pages.  The book opened at a recipe for cottage pie – as if anyone needs a recipe for cottage pie – and with my dad coming round for his dinner on the middle evening of our brief three-day stay in the UK, I thought “why not?”.  I realise of course that the purpose of the recipe book is more about getting the owner of a new oven used to using all its knobs and buttons than actually presenting original recipes, so I dutifully followed the recipe to the letter.  This included adding some tomato purée, something which I have never put into a cottage pie before.

 

The main difference between a cottage pie and a shepherd’s pie is that the first is made with beef and the second with lamb.  I didn’t know that until fairly recently and have been making both for decades thinking they were both a shepherd’s pie and wondering why some people called it a cottage pie! 

Either way, they’re simple to make and quite adaptable and the good thing is that you can wash up the pans while it’s in the oven so that by the time it comes to the table the kitchen is looking less like a war zone – something I’m trying to be conscious of now that we have a dining kitchen – eating dinner while staring at the washing up is something I don’t love about our new house.

The casualties.

There are of course, casualties with my new hob and oven.  Well not so much the oven, but most of my pans will not work with the induction hob so I have had to get a new set.  The old ones will go to France to supplement or replace the mismatched selection of mainly cheap ones we have there – bought when we thought all we wanted was a holiday home and we wouldn’t be doing very much cooking……..how things have changed!

I dislike pictures of leftovers but I completely forgot to take a picture of the finished cottage pie.  So I put in another of the oven as well – much more attractive!

The pie was delicious and because the recipe was sort of chosen at random I’m being cheeky and submitting it to this month’s Random Recipe Challenge, organised by the lovely Dom at Bellau Kitchen.  You can read all about it here.

If you want to catch up on the final stage of our house hunting adventures in France and take a peek at the new house – and its lovely kitchen – you can do that here.

Cottage pie – the ingredients

450g potatoes, peeled and quartered

225g carrots, peeled and diced

1 tbslp oil for frying

450g minced beef

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tbslp plain flour

250ml beef stock

1 tblsp tomato purée

2 tblsp Worcestershire sauce

250g pack of mushrooms, sliced

1 tblsp grated cheddar cheese

Method

Boil the potatoes and carrots until cooked.  Drain and mash them together.

Fry the onions, garlic and mince in a large frying pan until the meat is browned.  Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the stock, tomato and Worcestershire sauce and stir well.  Mix in the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat the oven to 170°fan.

Spoon the meat mixture into a suitable baking dish.  Spoon the potato and carrot mash on top of that and spread out evenly with a fork.  Sprinkle with the grated cheese and dot with butter if you like.

Put the dish on a baking sheet if you want to be sure the pie will not boil over onto your lovely brand new oven floor!  Bake for 25-30 minutes until browned and bubbling.

Serves 4.  Serve with greens of some kind.

CHOCOLATE AND DAMSON MERINGUE PIE

Dom’s Random Recipe Challenge this month is to cook a recipe chosen at random from a book about to be thrown out.  You can read the details here.

As you may know, I’ve been doing a lot of clearing out lately, having taken boxfuls of stuff to the charity shops or the tip, including plenty of books.  I do find cook books very difficult to get rid of though.  There’s always the chance that there might just be that one recipe inside, the one I simply can’t live without…….

 

However, I can definitely say that I won’t miss this little M&S book.  I haven’t used it at all and most of the recipes are replicated in other books on the shelf.

But I flipped the pages to see what would turn up.  A chocolate meringue pie.  Hmmmmmm….

 

As well as sorting out and chucking out we are also in the process of eating up and I happened to have some very nice chocolate for baking in a box in the kitchen cupboard, also plenty of eggs and sugar.  So I thought I might as well have a go.

It was lovely.

I confess I didn’t stick absolutely to the recipe.  I was supposed to make a biscuit crumb base from chocolate digestives and butter, cheesecake style, but I didn’t have any chocolate biscuits in the house.  (Far too dangerous.)

But I did have half a pack of ready made pastry and since I would usually make a lemon meringue pie with pastry, not biscuits, I thought I would do the same this time.

I also had a jar of home made damson jam that needed eating up and it occurred to me that a hint of damson might take the edge off the potential sweetness of the chocolate filling and the meringue.  I was right and it worked a treat.

The pastry was crisp, the meringue was golden and crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy inside, the chocolate filling was thick and velvety and the damson a nice little surprise of sharpness with each mouthful. 

I’m not sure I would rush to make it again, but you never know.

Ingredients

Half a pack of ready made shortcrust pastry (or make your own from 6oz flour and 3oz butter)

Or, make a biscuit crumb base mix from 225g dark chocolate digestives and 52g melted butter.

For the filling **

3 large egg yolks

4 tblsp caster sugar

4 tblsp cornflour

600ml (1 pint) milk

100g plain chocolate

2 tblsp damson jam (blackcurrant or blackberry would also be nice)

For the meringue topping

2 large egg whites

100g caster sugar

¼ tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Grease a 23 cm (approx) flan dish or tin.

Roll out the pastry and line your flan dish, fill with baking paper and baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes. 

(Or if you are using the biscuit crumb base, press it into the bottom and up the sides of the dish and there’s no need to blind bake.)

While the pasty is cooking, make the chocolate filling.   Melt the chocolate in a microwave, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Beat the egg yolks, caster sugar and cornflour together in a medium bowl to make a smooth paste.

In a medium saucepan, bring the milk almost to the boil and pour onto the egg paste, whisk together. 

Pour in the melted chocolate and whisk together. 

Return the chocolate mixture to the pan and heat gently, stirring, until it begins to thicken. 

(**I found this made way too much filling for my flan dish and next time would reduce all the ingredients by a third except for the chocolate.)

Spread the damson jam evenly over the pastry or biscuit base, pour in the chocolate mixture and level the top.

To make the meringue, put the egg whites in a large bowl and whisk to soft peak stage.  Whisk in two thirds of the caster sugar, a spoonful at a time, until the mixture is smooth and glossy.  Fold in the rest of the sugar and the vanilla extract.  Pour over the chocolate filling and spread out to cover completely and evenly.

Bake for 30 minutes until the meringue is golden and crisp.  Serve warm or cool.

Serves 6.

PLUM AND APPLE DAPPY

Two of my favourite baking challenges have joined forces this month.  Random Recipes by Dom of Bellau Kitchen, and Aphabakes, by Ros of The more than occasional baker and Caroline of Caroline Makes, have joined together to create an Alphabakes Random Recipe Challenge.

The idea is to choose a cook book at random and then randomly choose and cook a recipe in the A section of the index. 

Most of my cook books are now packed ready for moving house so my choice was limited to the remaining few in one bookcase.  Glancing along the shelf I saw this book by Laura Washburn:

Thinking that apples conveniently begin with the letter A, I took it off the shelf and discovered a post-it already attached to a page, one I had obviously bookmarked for baking some time ago.  So I decided to cook that.  I hope that’s random enough to comply with the rules of the challenge!

I deviated slightly from the recipe as I wanted to use up a few plums remaining from baking a crumble the previous weekend, but other than that I was reasonably true to the original.  I also conveniently had half a pack of ready made shortcrust pastry in the fridge left over from making a quiche.

 

I had never heard of a “dappy” before I bought this book (one of my charity shop finds) and essentially it’s like a pastry roly-poly, filled with fruit instead of jam and sliced before baking.  The author describes it as a little known dish from the West Country. 

I now have several of Laura Washburn’s books, the first one I acquired being a Christmas present a few years ago called “the French country table”.  I have cooked quite a few recipes from all of them and they have always been a success.

As well as charity shops I find a good way of acquiring cook books for a very modest price is to use the “used and new” offer on Amazon.  I have collected some really good books for the cost of  only 1p each plus postage, which is usually £2.80.  One or two of the used books have been slightly grubby and very well used, but at that price, if it doesn’t inspire me, I am quite happy to take it back to the charity shops, which is where I imagine most of these 1p books come from in the first place.  Most of the used books have been in near perfect condition.

As shop bought plums can be a bit firm I usually cook them before putting them into a crumble or pie, so I cooked these along with the apples and also added a dash of cinnamon for extra flavour.   There was a bit too much fruit so rather than make the pastry too difficult to roll up by over filling it, I just tucked the extra in between the pastry rolls in the tin.

It was delicious!  A nice change from a pie or crumble and I will definitely be making it again.  I have to say that the shop bought ready made pastry was good too.  I’m using it at the moment to save time but I wouldn’t hesitate to use it again and again.

You can read all about this month’s “Random Recipes meets Alphabakes” challenge here and here.

Ingredients

250g ready made shortcrust pastry, approx half a pack

5 large plums, halved, stoned then cubed

2 medium eating apples, peeled, cored and cubed

2 tblsp golden caster sugar

½tsp ground cinnamon

1tblsp demerara sugar

Method

Put the cubed fruit into a medium saucepan with a splash of water and heat gently for 10-15 minutes until the fruit is tender.  Stir in the caster sugar and cinnamon and set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 220°C / 200°fan / gas mk 7.  Line a 20cm square baking tin or dish with baking paper.

Roll out the pastry into an oblong approximately 20 x 30 cm.

Spread the cooked fruit over the pastry and roll up like you would a Swiss roll, from one long side.

Cut the roll into 7* even slices and lay one slice in the centre of the dish, cut side up.  Arrange the remaining slices around the centre one, not touching as the pastry will expand.  Sprinkle with the demerara sugar.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and cooked through.

Serve with custard, cream, ice cream or crème fraîche.

Serves 4*.

*I followed the instructions and cut the roll into 7 slices but next time I will cut it into 8, to make portioning easier and fairer !!

CIDER AND ONION SOUP

This month’s Random Recipe selection turned up another of my charity shop finds – a book simply called “apples”.  This was slightly inconvenient as there were no apples left in the house, the last having been used for dessert as baked apples the night before.

Luckily when I flipped the pages the book opened at a recipe that uses cider, not actual apples and we happened to have a can of dry cider lurking in the cupboard.  Which is odd because neither of us drinks it ~ we must have got it in for a long since forgotten recipe for something.

Having spent ages slicing the onions by hand I then remembered that I could have used the slicing disc on my food processor, which would have saved a lot of time and sliced them thinner, which would have been better.  I shall try to remember that next time, as I will definitely be making this soup again.

It was an unusual soup and we enjoyed it.  It’s a good way to use up a glut of onions, whether home grown or in one of those large bags of onions that can be bought quite cheaply at the supermarket.

So thanks again to Dom of Bellau Kitchen for getting me to cook a recipe that I almost certainly never would have done otherwise, if it hadn’t been for his Random Recipe Challenge.  You can see the details here.  Also, having found the book on my shelf again, I shall explore its pages even further as it’s full of lovely recipes.

Ingredients

50g butter

3 tblsp olive oil

1kg onions, peeled and thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, sliced

500ml chicken or vegetable stock (can be gluten free if using GF stock cubes)

500ml medium dry cider

Method

Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan until the butter has melted.

Add the onions and garlic and fry, uncovered, for 30 minutes, until the onions are soft and golden.

Add the cider and stock, bring back to the boil on high heat and boil for 4-5 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper and serve in warmed bowls with crusty bread.

Serves 6.

APPLE, CRANBERRY AND CINNAMON TART

This month, Dom of Bellau Kitchen has gone all sweet for his Random Recipe Challenge.  We are invited to choose a book at random and pick through the cakes and desserts section at the back to make something sweet in honour of his birthday which is in September.

I was in France when the theme was “announced” and my selection of cookbooks in our little holiday home there is much more limited and rather different from the one here.  With eyes closed I ran my hand along the single shelf of cook books and pulled out this one by Linda Collister:

 

In spite of this being an absolutely gorgeous book, full of interesting recipes all beautifully photographed, I have never made anything from it.  So I flipped the pages and turned up a recipe for “apple cinnamon tart”.

I have actually looked at this recipe a few times before and rejected it, thinking that it looked too much trouble for what is essentially an apple pie.  So now was my chance to find out exactly how much trouble it was !!

Believe it or not, even though we were chez nous for the next two weeks, I never got the opportunity to make it, even though I managed to find a small packet of dried cranberries in the local supermarché.  But I stuck to the rules of the challenge and brought the book back home with me rather than “cheat” and choose a different one when we got back to England.

The pie is made using a sweet pastry case and filled with grated apple that has been tossed in cinnamon, and some dried fruit – I went for the cranberry option.

The end result was in fact definitely worth the effort.  The combination of the sharp dried cranberries worked well with the Bramley apples and cinnamon.  Although next time I think I would halve the quantity of cinnamon making it a much more subtle hint of flavour.  Mind you, the fruit did look strangely brown like matchsticks due to the coating of cinnamon – but it was reassuringly exactly like the picture in the book.

This is a recipe that is easy enough to do when you want something a bit different from an ordinary apple pie and I will certainly be making it again.  We had ours warm with a blob of thick crème fraîche – the one called “crème fraîche d’Isigny” and is very much like a really good clotted cream.  (Having been introduced to it by friends in France we liked it so much that we brought a jar back with us.)

And it’s thanks once again to Dom for getting me to delve into a previously neglected recipe book and discovering a little gem of a recipe.  You can read all about this month’s challenge here.

Happy Birthday Dom, I hope it’s a good one !!

Ingredients

For the pastry

180g plain flour

pinch of salt

20g caster sugar

120g cold unsalted butter

1 egg yolk, mixed with about 2tsp cold water

For the filling

3 large or 4 medium Bramley apples

2tsp ground cinnamon (I would us 1tsp next time)

2tblsp caster sugar

30g dried cranberries (or other dried fruit such as raisins or cherries)

2tblsp golden syrup

30g cold unsalted butter, diced

Method

To make the pastry, mix together the dry ingredients, rub in the butter and bring together with the egg yolk and water.  Add a splash more water if it’s too dry.  Wrap in cling film and chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.  Grease a 23 cm tart tin or dish and place a baking sheet in the oven to heat up.

Roll out the pastry to line the tin or dish and chill again while preparing the filling.

Peel and core the apples then grate coarsely and put into a large bowl.  Add the cinnamon, sugar and cranberries and mix well to combine.  Spoon the mixture into the pastry case and drizzle the golden syrup over.  Dot with the butter.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the apple cooked.  If you have used a loose bottomed tin, leave to cool slightly before turning out.  Serve warm. 

Serves 6-8, depending how large you like your slice of pie.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND RED ONION TART

When Dom of Bellau Kitchen announced the theme for this month’s Random Recipe Challenge, “Grab and Run”, I knew straight away which book I would choose.  The idea is to choose within ten seconds which recipe book you would most like to keep above all others. 

I did hesitate for a second, wondering whether I might prefer Annie Bell’s “Gorgeous Cakes” but no, the Popina Book of Baking was definitely “The One” for me.

Then I had to open it at random and cook the recipe in front of me, assuming it was one I hadn’t made before.  Now that could be a problem as I have made lots of the recipes in this lovely book, but I was in luck.

I had never made this butternut squash tart before.  The interesting thing about it is that the pastry is not a regular shortcrust, not even wholemeal pastry, but is made from pizza dough, which meant using yeast.  Now that would be first for me, having never made bread or used yeast for anything before, except of course in our bread making machine.  Nick is the bread maker in the house these days.

 

The recipe specifies using a spelt pizza dough but unfortunately when I opened the packet of spelt flour there was not enough left so I made a normal white pizza dough instead.  It was easy enough and gave a fairly businesslike crust to what is a very meaty meatless tart.

In the end I modified the recipe slightly.  The idea is to put half of the cream mixture in the tart, pile the vegetables on top and pour over the other half.  I did this and the remaining liquid did not cover the huge amount of veg.  So I decided to make another batch of the cream mixture and pour that on as well.  The alternative would have been, I suppose, to remove some of the filling.

Consequently the tart took much longer to cook than the time stated, more like 45-50 minutes rather than 30-35.  Even then it was still a little runny when I cut a slice so I shoved it back in the oven for a bit longer !!

So it turned out to be a monster of a tart !!  Very tasty and very filling.  I would definitely make it again and also possibly add some spices for interest, possibly cumin or some ginger.  We had ours on its own with some salad, but it would make an interesting side dish to go with a roast, or possibly chops or sausages.  It took us several days to eat our way through it and it kept well in a box in the fridge.

I give here my adaptation of the recipe.

Ingredients

For the pastry base:

220g strong white flour

1tsp quick dried yeast

½tsp salt

2tblsp olive oil

1egg, lightly beaten

80ml warm water

For the filling:

1 small red onion

400g butternut squash

250ml double cream

2 eggs

4tblsp grated parmesan cheese

1tsp salt

½tsp black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C / 150° fan / gas mk 3.  Grease a 23cm loose-bottomed tart tin.

To make the pastry base, mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, make a well in the centre and pour in the wet ingredients.

Using clean hands, bring everything together and work into a soft dough.  Turn onto a floured surface and knead for two minutes.  If the dough is still sticky, add a little more flour.

Roll out to 3mm thickness and use to line the tin but leave the edges untrimmed.

To make the filling, peel the onion and slice thinly.  Peel the squash, discard the seeds and cut into matchsticks.  Mix together in a bowl.

In a large jug, whisk together the cream, eggs, cheese, salt and pepper.

Pour half the cream mixture into the tin, spread the vegetables on top, then pour over the rest of the liquid.  Run a rolling pin over the tart to trim off the excess pastry.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until golden brown and set, but check after 30 for browning.

Allow to cool slightly before serving.  Serve warm or cold, with salad, or warm as a side dish to a roast.

Serves 8 generously and keeps for a few days in an airtight container in the fridge.

CHEESY BAKED EGGS

Dom’s Random Recipe Challenge this month is to bake the recipe on page 30 of cookbook number 30 on your bookcase.  You can see the details here.  I counted mine out and turned up a recipe for baked eggs in the recent book “John Whaite Bakes”.  This is the charming young man who won the Great British Bake Off last year.

This book is very much in the style of modern cookbooks, each recipe having its own little story as an introduction and with lots of photos of the author, looking very handsome, nibbling a biscuit, holding a mug, walking down an alley of factory buildings holding half a baguette………..somehow I find it all slightly unnecessary.  I blame Nigella – she started it, I seem to remember, and now they all do it.  Except for Delia, who doesn’t seem to need to.  It’s the celebrity thing, I suppose. 

Having said all that, this really is a lovely book.  The photos are beautiful  and there’s one for most of the recipes – something I appreciate as it is helpful to see what the finished dish should look like.  There are lots of fabulous recipes to try and they are clearly written. 

And – at the risk of revealing here another little bee from my bonnet – at least the food isn’t presented on grotty, grubby, chipped and cracked old crockery that I personally would have thrown out long ago.  This is another cookbook fashion that I really don’t understand.  Shabby chic is one thing, well used and well worn favourite crockery is another, but chipped, cracked dishes, rusty tins and tea-stained tea cloths – no thanks !!

Maybe it’s just me or it’s my age.  I’m now at the age where I can conveniently blame all sorts of things on my age and people accept it – turning 60 and gradually becoming a batty old lady is beginning to seem like fun after all !!

The nice thing about this recipe is that it is so simple you hardly need a recipe at all.  My mum used to make these for Sunday tea.  They were exactly the same except that she would never have used herbs and made them in a large Pyrex dish for the four of us.  We would have ours with a slice of toast and a few baked beans on the side. ( John apparently has his with some sourdough or freshly baked foccacia!)

To make cheesy baked eggs:

Preheat the oven to 170°C / 160°fan / gas mk 3.

For each person, butter a large ramekin and drop two eggs into it.  Add a tablespoon of cream or milk, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with a few leaves of thyme.  (I omitted the thyme as it’s growing in the garden and we were in the middle of a thunderstorm, it was chucking it down and I couldn’t be bothered to fetch my mac and wellies.)

Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for 12-14 minutes if you like your eggs slightly runny, a little longer if you like them hard.  Serve hot with toast, or just on their own.

GUILT FREE, GLUTEN FREE, BLACK FOREST CAKE

I wanted to make a gluten free cake and decided to have a look in one of my favourite baking books, “Gorgeous Cakes” by Annie Bell.  Although it is not specifically a gluten free recipe book, a lot of the recipes are just that.  I liked the look of this one that is also described as "guilt free".

This is apparently because it has no butter or cream in it. 

As you can see, mine looks nothing at all like the picture in the book.  This is actually because the “cream” topping in the picture is in fact ricotta cheese and mine turned out to be extremely runny.  It ran off the top of the cake, taking the grated chocolate with it !!  The topping also has honey in it instead of icing sugar, which presumably makes it less indulgent and therefore making one feel less guilty about that second or third slice…...

Considering there is no flour or butter in the cake, it rose amazingly well, all the rise coming from the whisking of the eggs to give lift to the ground almonds.

The original guilt free recipe isn’t exactly for a black forest cake.  At the last minute I decided to add some black cherry jam to the filling and put some cherries on top for decoration.  I think it needed the jam.  Without it the cake would have been quite bland I think.

However, I would definitely make this cake again.  The good rise and the moist chocolateyness made it a lovely cake for a gluten free diet.  The ricotta didn't work for me so next time I might just abandon the guilt free concept and fill it with whipped cream!

As this month’s Tea Time Treats challenge is for “layer cakes”, I think this cake just about qualifies and just about sneaks in - in the nick of time !! The challenge is the work of Kate of What Kate Baked and Karen of Lavender and Lovage and you can see the details here.

As the cake was also a random selection and a healthy one (well at least until I added the black cherry jam!), it fits in (hopefully) with Dom’s Random Recipe Challenge at Belleau Kitchen this month, which is for “Healthy and Happy”.  You can see the details here.

Ingredients

4 medium eggs, separated

150g caster sugar

3 tblsp cocoa powder

225g ground almonds

1tsp gluten free baking powder

2 x 250g tubs of ricotta cheese

3 tblsp set honey

approx half a jar of black cherry jam

approx 4 tblsp grated dark chocolate

a few fresh cherries to decorate (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 4.  Grease and line the base of a deep 20cm springform cake tin.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites stiffly using an electric whisk.  In a larger bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until pale and creamy.

Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture in three goes until well combined.  Then sift in the cocoa and baking powder.  Add the ground almonds and fold in.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and level the top.  Bake for 35 minutes until the cake shrinks back from the sides of the tin slightly and passes the skewer test.

Run a knife round the edge of the cake and leave to cool in the tin.

To make the filling, drain the liquid from the ricotta then blitz in a food processor with the honey until well combined.

Remove the cake from the tin and carefully cut into two layers using a bread knife.  Put one half on a cake stand or plate and spread generously with the jam.  Add about half of the cheese topping and put the second layer on top.

Spread the remaining cheese topping over the cake and sprinkle with grated chocolate.  Add a few fresh cherries to decorate.  Chill in the fridge for an hour or so before serving.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.  Keep in the fridge but leave out of the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving.