Almond, Coconut & Blackberry Cake

30/04/2020

Happy quarantine everyone.

I hope you are all staying sane. My way of doing so is keeping myself busy by doing a lot of baking and going for walks and doing my stretches!

These are crazy times, but I hope you can all find a way to make the best of it. I am taking this opportunity to blow some life back into my blog, and to focus on learning to enjoy spending more time with myself in peace and quiet. I rarely just sit at home and relax, because I find it difficult to enjoy. But the last few days I've become better at it, but of course I am still distracting myself with reading for my PhD and... baking.

Which brings me to this delicious cake that I baked.

This cake is not too sweet, but still so very satisfying. Serve it still warm with some creme fraiche, or enjoy cold on its own with a hot cup of coffee.

Recipe

Equipment:

• 23 cm loose-bottom cake tin

• Large and medium mixing bowl

• Whisk

• Spatula

• Small saucepan

Ingredients:

• 170 grams of ground almonds

• 70 grams of self-raising flour

• 70 grams of grated fresh coconut flesh (or use desiccated coconut instead)

• 200 grams of caster sugar

• 0.25 tsp of sea salt

• 4 eggs

• 1.5 tsp of vanilla aroma

• 200 grams of melted butter

• 200 grams of frozen or fresh blackberries

• Zest of 2 lemons

• Handful of slivered almonds

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius (fan oven).

2. Melt 200 grams of butter in a small saucepan, and set aside to let it cool down.

3. Whisk the first five ingredients (the "dry" ingredients) together in a large mixing bowl.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and add the vanilla aroma, melted butter and the lemon zest. Make sure the butter is not warm anymore, as the eggs might curdle otherwise.

5. Add the wet mix into the dry mix and combine. Do not overmix.

6. Fold in the berries using a spatula, careful not to crush them.

7. Line the bottom of a 23cm tin with parchment paper, and grease the sides of the tin with some leftover melted butter from the pan. You can use the spatula for this.

8. Gently transfer the cake batter to the tin and sprinkle with the slivered almonds.

9. Bake the cake for 50-55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

This cake is best left at room temperature in a tupperware box, and eaten in 2 days. If you want to store it a bit longer, be sure to place it in the fridge, as it will go off faster than other cakes due to the high egg content.

Enjoy!