Berry Bakewell Cake!
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A simple, delicious berry bakewell cake with fresh berries and almonds – perfect served with custard.
Berry bakewell cake
A couple of weeks ago I posted the recipe I use for my bakewell tart – I adore bakewell tart and its the perfect dessert for a summery evening but I had a thought, sometimes using pastry, or even just making the pastry is effort and I can’t be dealing with that when I am in a rush. Therefore, the berry bakewell cake was born.
This cake is a marriage of a classic sponge, with almonds and fresh berries. It really is that simple. It’s the rare cake that I decided to leave alone, and not decorate with some sort of frosting, because the simplicity of this one really wins.
Sponge
The sponge mix has a standard mix of butter, sugar, flour and eggs, with some ground almonds, vanilla and milk added in. You’d think it might mess with the baking of the sponge, and it just doesn’t! It gives it a wonderfully delicious texture and it’s still so light and utterly scrumptious. Once you have added in the ground almonds, the mix becomes veryyyy thick, but the addition of the fruit brings back the moisture that you need.
- Butter – you can use a baking spread or room temperature unsalted butter
- Sugar – I tend to use caster sugar as a standard in this cake, but golden caster is lovely as well.
- Eggs – I used medium eggs in nearly all of my baking but 2-3 large should also work
- Flour – self raising flour of course!
- Ground almonds – this is what makes it so utterly tasty
- Vanila – an added optional sweetness
Berries
For this cake, you can use whatever berry you like really. I went for raspberries and blueberries because they were what I had in the fridge. Raspberry is classic with bakewell, but I have made this cake with all blackberries, all blueberries, all raspberries, etc etc.
It really is entirely your choice! Personally, my favourite mix is the raspberry and blackberry as I have said, but I have made this many times and also mess around with other fruit! I also do use fresh fruit, but you could try frozen.. it may just take longer to bake because of the extra moisture.
You can either add half of the cake mix into the tin, and layer on some berries, and then add the rest of the mix, or you can just fold all of the fruit through the mixture and pour into the tin. Luckily, because of the almonds, the fruit doesn’t sink too much.
Decoration
The wonderful part of this recipe is that it is very simple to make – bung all the ingredients for the cake in a bowl and mix until its ready – it takes less than a minute to mix together it’s THAT easy. I add some almonds on top of my sponge as they toast during baking and I adore it, and it’s also a little bit of decoration.
The final touch to this cake is a little sprinkle of icing sugar, but that’s obviously optional; It just makes it look very pretty. You can serve this cake with anything you fancy… extra fruit, custard, cream or whatever! As long as you love it.
Berry Bakewell Cake!
Ingredients
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 150 g caster sugar
- 150 g ground almonds
- 150 g self raising flour
- 3 medium eggs
- 2 tbsp whole milk (optional)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
- 250 g berries (125g blueberries/raspberries)
- 25-50 g flaked almonds
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180ºc/160ºc fan and grease and line a deep 8″/20cm cake tin
- Add your butter, sugar, flour, ground almonds, eggs, milk and vanilla to a mixer, and beat until smooth!
- Spread half of the mixture on the bottom of the tin – spread the berries on top of the first half of the mixture, then spread the rest of the cake mixture on top
- Sprinkle the cake with the flaked almonds and bake in the oven for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
- Leave to cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with the icing sugar – serve!
Notes
- This cake will last for 3-4 days at room temperature
- This cake can be served with whatever you fancy... cream, ice cream, custard etc
- You can use whatever berries you like, just stick to 250g maximum
- You can freeze the cake for 3+ months easily
- I use this cake tin in my recipe
ENJOY!
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Made this to pass a rainy afternoon, used soya butter (lactose intolerant) & gluten free flour (gluten intolerant) had no golden caster sugar so I used the coconut sugar I had oh & forgot the ,vanilla! So basically made this cake on a whim, in a 9inch square pan, it looked very flat & limp going into the oven. But it came out like a golden raspberry & almond goddess! Fab! Defo going to make again
Hi Jane.
Love all your recipes. I’m always torn when I see recipes for cakes that use self raising flour then add baking powder. I follow the recipe and the cake sinks all the time. I should go with my gut instinct as I get disappointed when it doesn’t come out right(any ideas as to why). So glad this recipe doesn’t have the addition of B/P. Can I use a 2lb loaf tin for this with the same cooking times?
The sinking doesn’t usually have anything to do with the baking powder (as I have recipes with those ingredients, and they don’t sink) but if you aren’t measuring it correctly or undertaking, it can. The baking time will likely change with a loaf tin!
can I use a 9 inch tin? what changes would you advise? thanks
You will need about 1/3 more in ingredients, and to bake for longer! x
I made this with frozen raspberries (slightly thawed, took 65 mins to cook). Friends came round for morning coffee and there was none left for afternoon tea! Delicious.
Thank you, will definitely make again very soon
This cake was amazing – simple but delicious when you just want a treat with a cup of tea – can’t wait to make it again thank you 😊💅🍰🎉
I only have large eggs . What would you suggest ? Crack them , beat and take some out? Can’t wait to try it out !
Thanks
Zoe
Hey! I would just raise the butter, flour, almonds and sugar to 175g each – it then matches the three large eggs! X
Break and weigh your eggs…… then use same quantities of butter, flour, sugar and almonds
You should always weigh your eggs in the shells, rather than out.
Hi Jane
Do you think sprinkling a crumbling topping on this cake pre baking would work ?
Love your recipes!
Hey! Yes it would – can make it take a bit longer to bake though x
Hi would it be ok to use white caster sugar instead or would this affect the taste?
Thank you
Changing sugars will change the taste, but it’s only marginal!
Awesome
Hi Jane! Hoping to make this at the weekend – just wondering if you think it would work to dollop jam in the middle instead of/as well as the fresh berries? Thanks!
The jam may sink somewhat but it should be tasty!!
Made this today and i did swap out the vanilla extract for almond extract it was very easy to make and it tasted lovely not sure what I be making next thank you
I made this cake for my Mom’s 60th birthday as Bakewell Tart is one of her favourite desserts! I was over the moon when I saw you had a recipe for a cake version. It was a MASSIVE hit with her and with the whole family – so so simple to make and so delicious!
Hi,
Love your site and am working my way through the recipes.
Could I use almond extract instead of vanilla?
Thank you.
Yes you can!
Could I do this as a tray bake?
Theoretically yes – however, it’s not a large cake at all so you’d probably have to double it at least!
This cake was fab. We had it still warm with some clotted cream. Yum. Thanks for the receipe.
Hi Jane
planning to bake this as a friend has got a lot of blackberries from the allotment haha! recipe doesnt say it so i presume in this one we dont melt the butter? Many thanks for all your yummy cakes 🙂
Hiya! No – room temp would be perfect though! Hope this helps! x