Wholemeal honey and almond cake

This has everything you’d want in a cake – it’s sweet, moist and delicious, it keeps well and it’s straightforward to make.

I may go so far as to say that it’s nearly foolproof, but that I don’t want to tempt fate.

Start – as you start every single cake baking adventure – by greasing a 23cm baking tin with a removable bottom with butter and lining the base with greaseproof paper.

The rest of the recipe is equally unsurprising.

Butter, sugar, eggs, flour.

Beaten, folded, baked.

There are a few secrets, though, and it’s these little tricks and extras that make this particular cake stand out.

Weigh out 150g of wholemeal self-raising flour and mix in a teaspoon of baking powder.  If you don’t have wholemeal self-raising flour, just use ordinary wholemeal flour and increase the baking powder to two teaspoons.

Beat 300g of unsalted butter and 250g of golden caster sugar together until light, then beat in four medium eggs, one at a time.  Add a spoonful of the wholemeal flour with each egg, to stop the mixture from splitting.

Fold 150g of ground almonds into the mixture, then sift the rest of the flour over and gently fold it in, too.

Use a spatula to help tip the mixture into the baking tin, smooth the surface and scatter the top with 50g of flaked almonds.

Bake for forty-five minutes at 170c, or until a knife comes out clean when plunged into the middle of the cake.

When the cake is ready, take it out of the oven and, straight away, trickle four tablespoons of runny honey evenly over the top.  The honey will seep deep into the warm cake and spread throughout it, although it will pool deliciously around the centre.  Spoon some more honey right over the middle, just to make sure.

Allow to cool before turning out.

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5. Chocolate praline truffle cake

Tagged as: almonds, Baking, cake, dessert, honey, wholemeal