Variation on a Theme: Gluten & Dairy Free Bakewell Tart Cake

Finishing off the birthday cake triumvirate was the gluten free bakewell tart cake. Firstly I feel I should say that I have essentially already posted this recipe before, with my sticky almond and lemon cake, this is just a variation of the same recipe, but since I have ended up making it twice in 5 days and I actually remembered to do process photo's of making it this time I though I might as well put it up. Plus it shows just how versatile the basic almond cake recipe is.

I make this with tinned cherries because my pockets do not stretch to fresh at the moment (although I pop a couple on the top for decoration), also the juice is useful for making the syrup at the end. If your lucky and happen to have a cherry tree in your garden then by all means use fresh cherries which would be delicious, but otherwise the tinned do well enough.

Gluten Free Bakewell Tart Cake

4 Large Eggs
175g Caster Suger (+ 2 tbsp for the syrup)
225g Ground Almonds
1tsp Baking Powder (If making for celiacs ensure it is gluten-free baking powder)
1(small) tsp almond essence (not too much its powerful)
1 can of tinned cherries in juice or syrup
a handful of flaked almonds (optional)
a couple of fresh cherries to decorate (optional)

Preheat Oven to 180C

1) Seperate the eggs into two bowls
2) Whisk the whites until they form stiff peaks, you should be able to hold the bowl upside down without it dropping out.

3) Mix the Sugar and Egg Yolks together until it turns pale

4) Fold in the Yolk mix, 200g of the Ground Almonds, Essence and Baking Powder to the Whites, be gentle you don't want to loose all the air you put into your whites.

5) Take your tin of cherries, strain them into a bowl (remember to keep it for the syrup), and then roughly dry them with some kitchen towel. You don't want them too wet. Then coat in the other 25g of Ground Almonds.

6) Add this to your cake mix and gently stir in until they are fairly well distributed.

7) Pour into a greased and lined 8" cake tin and decorate as you fancy, this time round I sprinkled flaked almonds over the top and pushed some halves of fresh cherries into the top, as I was not planning on icing it. Last time I just left it to decorate after baking. 

7) Bake in a preheated oven for at least 45mins-hour, keep checking it, if the top looks like its going to burn cover with some tinfoil, but you want to bake it until the top is a little bit crisp and a skewer comes out clean.

8) Pour over your cherry syrup (see below) and leave to cool in tin before transferring to a plate to serve.

Cherry Syrup

This part is optional but it makes the cake just that little bit more moist, colourful and adds a nice zing. If you have cherries in syrup already just pour that over but if you have them in juice, to make a tangy cherry syrup to top it off with, put the juice from tin of cherries, juice of 1/2 a lemon and 2-3 tbsp caster sugar in a pan over a low hob & simmer until it has reduced by about 3/4, and voila!

Enjoy!!