Blackberry and Almond Cake

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There's a good crop of blackberries around this year, so I've managed to pick a few kilos. This is a bit of a red herring as I didn't actually use any of them in my cake! I wanted to make a cake using some kind of blackberries, and found this one ages ago on an American baking blog which seems to have disappeared. Luckily I'd printed off the recipe - so thank you anyway to 'CakeyJo'. You don't use the blackberries whole, you make them into jam. In the original recipe you had to make this first, but I had a couple of jars of homemade blackberry jam I bought in a local fete, so I used those . It's a cake with a difference in that it has a cakey -pastry base, a layer of jam, and finally another cakey-pastry layer.

You need a 23cm springform cake tin lined with baking parchment

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

In the bowl of a stand mixer beat together 180g butter and 225g caster sugar till white and fluffy. Using 2 large eggs, keep one white to egg wash at the end and add the other egg and the yolk to the bowl and beat again. Add zest of 1 lemon, seeds from a vanilla pod [or tspn vanilla extract] and 1/4 tspn almond extract and beat together on medium speed.
Fold in 320g plain flour which has been mixed with 1 tspn baking powder and 1/2 tspn salt. beat mixture slowly till well blended. Take bowl off stand and make the pastry into a ball. Divide in 2 and wrap one piece in clingfilm and put in fridge to chill.
Press the other piece into the base of the cake tin and about 2cm up the sides.
You need 2 x 340g of blackberry jam [2 jars] which you put into a bowl and mix with 2 tspn lemon juice.
Spoon this mixture into the pastry shell in the tin and spread with a spatula.
Get the other pastry from the fridge and roll out on a sheet of parchment paper or a silicone sheet into a 26cm round. Carefully put it into a freezer for about 10 mins till it's almost hard.
Put the pastry on the top of the cake tin and leave to soften. When it has, press it down carefully till it touches the layer of jam. Pinch the edges together.
Beat the leftover egg white lightly and brush over the top of the pastry. Sprinkle with about 30g of flaked almonds and some demerara sugar.
Bake till golden - about 40-50 mins.
Leave cake in tin for 10 mins then turn out onto a wire rack.




It's quite a large cake, so I froze half of it - it freezes really well. As I said earlier, the shortbread pastry is very short and melts in your mouth, a great contrast to the jam, then another layer of the lovely pastry. It really is delicious, and a cake with a difference. My daughter brought me this pretty cake stand back from her holidays, so am showing it off!

Comments

Suelle said…
That's an unusual method, but it looks very effective. I guess the dough is too short to be able to handle easily, even when cold.

It sounds delicious - it ought to be, with that much jam in it!
24/8/15 10:09 am
Snowy said…
Yes it is a lot of jam, but it is delicious!
24/8/15 11:24 am
Phil in the Kitchen said…
That sounds great. I must get out and look for blackberries.
25/8/15 2:13 pm
The Caked Crusader said…
What a lovely cake/tart hybrid. Love blackberries and you can't beat picking your own!
26/8/15 10:36 am
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