Oh how I suffered for this cake! I have a couple of friends who can't eat gluten, so I pounce on any tasty gluten-free cakes whenever I find them. This one from Majorca via Hugh Stanley-Fearnley-Whittingstall seemed ideal, but boy how I struggled. It didn't help that Thames Water had cut off my water supply the night I made it. I found I have no talent for separating eggs, or whisking whites, and eventually I had to just give up and hope for the best. The result wasn't too bad - the cake rose, against all the odds - and my guests enjoyed it. I'm not keen on the flavour, and would probably leave out the cinnamon next time. This is my warped version of Hugh's recipe.
Ingredients
- 8 eggs
- 250g caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod
- The zest of 1 lemon
- 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- 300g of ground almonds
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tablespoons of icing sugar
- Butter for greasing
- Creme fraiche, to serve
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- Use the butter to grease and line a round cake tin that's 20-ish cm across (or 8 inches), with a loose bottom.
- Separate the eggs. Take all night. Mess it up. Fail hopelessly. Start again.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until they're light and creamy. Use an electric whisk, for the love of God.
- Slit open the vanilla pod and scrape in the innards.
- Beat in the lemon zest and cinnamon.
- Fold in the ground almonds a little at a time. I ended up with a dense, sticky yellow lump. On purpose, naturally.
- In another bowl, add the salt to the egg whites, and beat until they form soft peaks (if you're Hugh). If you're me, spend three quarters of an hour trying to conjure peaks out of your whites. Drink heavily. Wonder what a peak actually looks like. Imagine there's some kind of mistake in the recipe. Interpret a light, transient froth on your egg white slop as 'soft peaks'.
- Add the bicarbonate of soda to the egg white slop, beat again and offer up a prayer to your deity of choice that the cake will rise.
- Fold the egg white slop into the rest of the mixture. You'll find 'folding' impossible, so just try to integrate it as thoroughly as possible into a loose vanilla slop.
- Put the batter into the cake tin and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.
- Open the oven after this time to discover that the cake has, against all the laws of baking and nature, actually risen. A skewer comes out miraculously clean.
- Let this miracle cake cool, dredge with the icing sugar, and then serve with the creme fraiche.
