Banana Cardamom Bread

I've made this cakey bread three times now. Something about this recipe required me to become a little obsessed with getting it just right so for the last 3 weekends we've had a banana bread of varying quality in the cake tin.

This is a cakey banana bread, it still has the crumb that a good sponge should, it isn't too dense, but it holds up well and can be spread with jam. The first two versions I made were much too dense - 2 bananas or 4 bananas is too much. 1 banana is just right! Version one had too little cardamom in it (2 pods), version two had too many (6 pods). The magic version had just one banana, and then the crushed seeds of 4 cardamom pods.

I only had bread flour in, which worked fine in this bread, and it is a bread after all. This makes one tall loaf that will cut in to lots of slices for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

1 banana - approx 100g

100g softened unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

pinch of salt

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

crushed seeds of 4 cardamom pods

1 tsp baking powder

250g bread flour


Heat your oven to gas mark 3 / fan 170 / electric 180. Mash the banana in a large bowl and then add the butter - mix together well and then stir in the sugar and salt. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing in with each addition. Then add in the vanilla and crushed seeds of cardamom. Sift in your flour and baking powder and fold in carefully.

Bake for around 40 minutes on the middle shelf til golden brown on top and cooked throughout. Leave to cool before removing from the tin and slicing.

You can eat this for breakfast, I reckon, it is totally fine. And I did.

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A Very Indian Afternoon Tea

I’m holding my very first food event! After lots of talking, thinking and encouragement from the lovely people who make up the Cambridge food blogger ‘scene’ (not sure I like that word but it fits) I have decided to hold two events celebrating Indian food.

First up I’m starting with afternoon tea, which seems like the natural first event for me, someone with such a sweet tooth. After that I will be holding a supperclub where I’ll be cooking up an all vegetarian Gujarati feasts for around 15 guests.

 Indian Afternoon Tea – Sunday 4th August, 3pm – 5pm  - a few places left
A central Cambridge location, not far from the rail station 

 The much loved British afternoon tea but with an Indian / Gujarati twist. Savoury nibbles (think Indian street food) to begin, sweet treats, a masala chai cake (pictured) and of course tea!
 £19 per person
To book places for the afternoon tea email me at deepa@lazygiraffe.com with the number of places you'd like, I'll then send you a PayPal invoice for the tickets. 

Gujarati Supperclub – no date as yet but it will be late August / early September. 
I’m still scouting around for the perfect venue, plus perfecting a stack of perfectly round rotli (chapatti). 

I’m really excited to be bringing you my ideas for these two events, I’ve had a lot of fun planning the menus for both and I really hope my guests will be wowed. Email me if you’d like to book or for more details. See you in August!

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Barm Brack & Being Influenced by Twitter

I think I get most of my cravings and inspirations from Twitter, along with recommendations for restaurants. Making Barm Brack was inspired by Katherine (@HR_Katherine on Twitter) who tweeted about having a slice of this traditional Irish cakey bread slathered in butter one day.

I've had a large jar of dried fruit languishing in my kitchen for a while, since I vastly overestimated how much I'd need of it for making Hot Cross Buns, and I had all the other ingredients, so it was fate!

This cake is dead easy to make and you'll have most of the ingredients in your cupboard. It requires only a tiny bit of planning, soaking the fruit in tea for at least 8 hours. I did this whilst making my morning cup of tea and it took only a few minutes to pull together. When I got home from work I added dry ingredients to a bowl along with an egg, and then stirred in the dried fruit. It cooked in the oven whilst I prepared dinner, and was ready to eat with a cup of tea later that evening, perfect.

And it contains no butter or oil, so you can pretend it is healthy.

You are meant to leave it for 1-2 days to sit but I have no patience and we ate it about an hour after it came out of the oven. I think it gets richer as the days go on, and you are supposed to eat it like bread, with a little butter. I've so far eaten it as more of a cake, but I'll definitely be trying it with butter with my cup of tea tomorrow morning.

I had kindly been given a small jar of chai masala from Jacob's Jams and Spices which I used in place of mixed spice, which worked really well and the spices didn't get lost. I'll be making actual masala chai from this soon, and posting up a review of it and their Kashmiri Blush Tea.

Barm Brack
Adapted from this recipe shared by Katherine.
Makes 1 900g loaf

375g dried fruit
50ml of whisky
250ml of strongly brewed tea (I steeped two black teabags for 2 minutes extra flavour)
butter, for greasing
2 tsp baking powder
225g plain flour
125g sugar
1/2 tsp of mixed spice or chai masala
1 egg
A ring to place inside - optional but fun! I should have done this, being a jeweller...

1. Put the mixed fruit in a bowl and then pour over the tea and whisky. Allow to soak for 8 hours or overnight
2. Preheat your oven to 170c / gas mark 3. Grease and line a loaf tin.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and spices together in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and add in the egg.
4. Add in the liquid from your fruit mixture to help you combine the egg with the mixture. Once combined, it should be a fairly wet mix, if it isn't add a little hot water.
6. Mix in the fruit and pour into your loaf tin. Bake for 1 hour on the middle shelf of your oven.

Leave to cool before eating (for as long as you can manage!). Store in an airtight container or wrapped in cling film. This cake bread makes an excellent breakfast afternoon snack with a nice cup of tea.

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Afternoon Tea at the Ludlow Kitchen

Last weekend we spent a sunny two days at Brook Farm in Berrington, on the Shropshire/Worcestershire border, a B&B we've stayed before and is now our go-to place for a relaxing break. Ludlow is very close and one of the best foodie spots in the country, when planning our return visit we were excited to learn the excellent Ludlow Food Centre had opened a restaurant, the Ludlow Kitchen.

We booked for afternoon tea on a Sunday afternoon weeks in advance and I was very impatient for it by the time the day arrived. For just £8.50 you get three different sandwiches, four mini cake slices, a fruit scone, clotted cream and as much loose leaf tea as you can manage.

The great thing about the Ludlow Kitchen is that most, if not all, of the produce that goes in to their food is made on site or very local - they bake their own bread, smoke their own salmon, cure their own ham and of course make their own cakes and scones. They even roast their own coffee beans and the tea is blended by a local Herefordshire company. As if that wasn't enough they grow fruit and vegetables in their own walled garden and the jam is made on site too. Suddenly that £8.50 seems ten times better value!

The service was excellent, welcoming and really helpful but not over the top. We first chose our teas from a list of 7 options, an English Breakfast for me and Darjeeling for the Mr. Vintage tea cups are used and the sugar is served in little cups made by local potters, Wenlock Pottery. The teabags used are a little strange looking but they do work very well with loose leaf tea.

The sandwiches were really impressive, usually they are the most neglected part of an afternoon tea in terms of creativity but not here. The bread was fresh wholemeal and there were three fillings each with salad leaves - cheese and pickle; smoked salmon, cucumber and pickled onion and ham and piccalilli. I particularly liked the salmon and the pickled onion was amazing with the rich salmon and the thinly sliced cucumber. We bought a jar of piccalilli from the food centre, it's great stuff - crunchy chunky vegetables with a good hit of mustard.

One of the cakes was the traditional Victoria sponge, which tasted like the birthday cakes I ate as a child - this is a good thing! It was a lovely trip down memory lane, the sponge was really light and it was sandwich with a little buttercream and strawberry jam. We were also treated to flaky and fruity Eccles cake, dense chocolate cake and a rich fruit cake.

Scones were textbook - very tall and packed with raisins and sultanas - I was able to tear it open, making sure I was using the correct etiquette when eating my scone. Raspberry jam (made on site) and clotted cream were served in little Wenlock Pottery cups.

The afternoon tea we had the Ludlow Kitchen was excellent, the atmosphere was relaxed and each element was made with lots of care and thought. I just can't believe what good value it was, £17 for two of us to eat so well, usually that is what you would pay per person.

If you're in the area (and if you're not I recommend planning a trip, maybe to coincide with Ludlow Food Festival?) do go along to the Ludlow Kitchen, and then the Ludlow Food Centre. They also do breakfast, lunch and dinner. I'm sure we'll be back in the area before too long and I can't wait to go back.

Ludlow Kitchen 
Bromfield
Ludlow
Shropshire
SY8 2JR

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Honey Sesame Dream Cake

I had a dream about this cake, scented with toasted sesame oil with the crunch of sesame seeds and a touch of citrus, and maybe some spice. I am aware this is totally ridiculous/obsessive but I am pretty sure cake is a good thing to be obsessive about, good cake that is. This is why dream made it into the title - and of course it is dreamy to eat!

This cake is flavoured with toasted sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds and then glazed with pure honey, with some spices, and topped with more toasted sesame seeds for crunch and prettiness.

I whisked my eggs to get some air into the batter, and also used yogurt for a creamier softer sponge. I used Yeo Valley Lemon Yogurt, but you could use plain yoghurt with some lemon curd whisked in, or some zest. My chicken eggs were from a local farm so were super yellow, hence the bright sponge!

Honey Sesame Dream Cake
Makes one round 20cm cake

150g butter, softened
150g caster sugar

100g plain or lemon flavoured yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tsp toasted sesame oil
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 medium eggs
50g toasted sesame seeds

For the topping:
1 -2 tablespoons of toasted sesame seeds
5-6 tablespoons of runny honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger

Preheat oven to 180c / 160c fan
Cream together butter and sugar til creamy. Then add in the yoghurt, vanilla and oil.
Fold in your flour, baking powder, salt and sesame seeds.
Whisk your eggs in a separate bowl til airy.
Gently fold in the eggs to the cake mixture.
Spoon mixture into a lined/greased 20cm cake tin and bake for 30 - 40 minutes til cooked through.
Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes then remove from the cake tin.

Mix the spices with the honey, if it is a little too thick to spread add a tiny bit of hot water.
Spread over the cake with a pastry brush (silicone ones are best for sticky honey!)
Sprinkle over sesame seeds generously.

Cut it, eat it, be happy, and hopefully dream about it later on. :)

my giraffe socks (great aren't they?) sneaked into the photo, so here is an outtake for you...

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Orange & White Chocolate Cake - Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook

The Clandestine Cake Club is a wonderful thing. Back in 2010  Lynn Hill set up a small local get together in Leeds for bakers and cake eaters to meet, eat and talk. No competition, no rivalry, just a chance to bake a cake and share it with others. Since then the cake club has spread nationally and internationally, with more than 150 clubs meeting, eating and baking.

As a member, and more recently a co-host, of the Cambridge club, I have met lots of great people at the many meets I've attended and we've talked about everything from the frustrations of buttercream, our thoughts on Paul Hollywood and the best cake tins. My cakey knowledge has come on leaps and bounds since I attended the first Cambridge club in 2011.

The Clandestine Cake Club cookbook came out last week, it is a collection of over 120 recipes from members of cake clubs, is this the very first crowdsourced cookbook? The book is beautifully photographed and there is such an array of different recipes that it is so hard to choose which one to begin with. The book is split into sections - classic cakes, Victorian cakes, fruity cakes, global cakes, zesty cakes, chocolatey cakes (of course), celebration cakes and creative cakes.

There is also a brilliant section about the various cake disasters that can happen to bakers - refreshing to see in a cookbook as many do tend to paint a perfect world of cooking and baking. I can safely say I've had my fair share of undercooked cakes, melting buttercream and cakes stuck to the tin. Fortunately the book offers some advice for how to fix this, or prevent it in the first place.

I've bookmarked about 12 recipes in the book that I must make soon, and for my first bake I thought it would be fitting to bake one of Lynn's recipes. I chose the Orange & White Chocolate Cake - a classic sponge soaked in orange syrup and sandwich with white chocolate and orange buttercream.

It is a delicious cake, quite sweet but the orange really helps to lighten it and make it seem not so naughty! The sponge recipe is straightforward and the buttercream not too difficult - I always find chocolate buttercream a little easier to make than standard as the cooling chocolate helps it to stay stiff and not melt so easily (provided your chocolate is cool).

I'll be trying to resist having another slice of this today, and then bringing the rest in for my colleagues to eat - which I think is in the spirit of the cake club - sharing cake!

The Clandestine Cake Club Cookbook is available to buy from all bookshops and online. The Book People also have it for only £6.99 at the moment, which is a bargain. Pick up a copy, find your local cake club and get baking!

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Herman Friendship Cake

If you google Herman Friendship Cake it is basically all over the internet, there is even a whole website dedicated to it.  Basically it is a sweet sourdough starter used to make cake, you divide it into 5 portions - make a cake with 1 and distribute the rest to 4 lucky friends. I'd heard of it a while ago and a couple of weeks ago I got my hands on a bubbling pot of Herman starter from Vanessa.

I fed it with milk, sugar and flour, stirred it (not with a metal spoon, very important) and it stunk out the kitchen with yeasty smells for about a week. I've tried sourdough before, and whilst it was successful soon my starter started to smell of paint and it didn't make good bread anymore, so in the bin it went. Maybe my kitchen has the wrong atmosphere?

I wasn't intending on keeping this starter or passing it on as you are meant to (what can I say, I am greedy) - mainly because I'd never remember to feed this little floury pet every few days for the forseeable future. So about 1/3 went into a Herman friendship cake and the rest into a semi-sweet sourdough loaf (which actually didn't come out too well but let's not talk about that...).

I used this recipe here but substituted the oil for cooled melted butter, because you know, butter is better in a cake. I also added four chopped pink lady apples (and a few sliced up on the top) and a generous amount of vanilla extract. The resulting cake is very proper looking - homey, HUGE with a lovely crispy top. Had I had got around to making custard, I'd say it would be great with custard.

The cake has a yeasty taste which isn't as odd as it seems, to me it tastes a bit like a chelsea bun  - which is why I expect the original recipe contains raisins, I think some nuts would be great too.

I now kind of wish I'd saved the starter for more cake, I'll just have to make more friends with Hermans!

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Margarita Cake & Clandestine Cake Club

Another day, another cake club! My favourite cocktail is a margarita, and I didn't have to think hard when asked to make a cocktail inspired cake for the next Clandestine Cake Club. Apart from anything else, I already had triple sec and tequila in my kitchen, all I needed was limes (oh and butter, sugar, flour...) and a spare evening.

I was also particularly excited because last night's cake club was my first as official co host. It was held at the lovely Greens Coffee in Cambourne, and a dozen cakes and guests settled around a long table filled with all kinds of cakes. We were also joined by the lovely Leanne from Cambridge News, more on that in a couple of weeks....

This cake gets all the flavour after baking - the sponge is a simple vanilla with lots of lime zest stirred in. After it comes out the oven a tequila sugar syrup is poured over the cake to soak in whilst it cools. Then it is topped with even more booze - in the form of a tequila, triple sec, lime and cream cheese icing.

Margarita Cake
makes 1 loaf cake

For the cake:
200g unsalted butter, softened
200g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
zest of 2 limes
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4 / 160 c fan / 180 c conventional. Cream together the butter and sugar til light and fluffy. Then add in the eggs one by one til well combined. Add vanilla and lime zest. Add in all the flour and baking powder and gently fold in til just combined. Bake in a lined loaf tin for 25-30 minutes.

Margarita Syrup
2 tablespoons of icing sugar
1 capful of Tequila
1 capful of Triple Sec
juice of 1 lime

Mix all the ingredients together til the sugar is dissolved.
When the cake is cooked, leave in the tin for about 5-10 minutes, then remove and put on a plate. Poke small holes in the cake with a skewer and then evenly pour the syrup over the cake. Leave to cool.

Cream cheese icing
100g cream cheese
25g of butter, softened
1 tablespoon of Tequila
1 tablespoon of Triple Sec
juice of 1 lime
150g - 200g icing sugar

Cream together the butter and the cream cheese, then add in 100g of icing sugar and the spirits and lime. Add in more icing sugar as you combine til you have a thick icing, slightly thicker than custard - you want nice pourable icing. Refrigerate whilst the cake cools.

This cake is best iced just before you serve it - which I didn't think through very well because it meant I had to arrive at cake club with a tub full of it and a spoon ready to ice at the table. Just pour tablespoon fulls of it over the cake in a 'rustic' fashion! If you have some left it will freeze well and you can use it for another cake.

Our next Cambridge Clandestine Cake Club is the 24th November, sign up on the website.

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Teacake, Shepreth

Picture from Teacake, Shepreth

I've been keeping this little place from you, well, unless you follow me on Twitter, in which case I have been banging on about how great their coffee is for about 6 months now.

I'm very lucky and I know it. This tea room does amazing coffee, homemade cakes and sandwiches is 2 minutes away from my office. I know. So lucky.

Teacake is in a grade 1 listed building, which used to be the old village post office. There is a cosy little dining area and also a pretty tea garden for the warmer months - we've had meetings there which is a much more of an improvement than a boring boardroom, and it comes with cake! The owners, Christine and Maurice, are really interested in food and love to try out new ideas and try to source their ingredients as locally as possible, it is great to see people who really care about their food and it means there is always something new there.

Their coffee is what I really shout about - it is Monmouth Coffee and Maurice is quite the coffee expert, and knowing I'm a food blogger he loves to talk to me about how he makes his coffee and how a proper cup should be made.

Along with the coffee there are an array of freshly baked cakes - Victoria sponge, sticky date (my favourite), gluten free lemon - flapjacks, tiffin, scones and of course teacakes. They have a range of loose leaf teas which you can also buy to take home with you. For lunchtime there are also sandwiches (often made with their own home baked hams or smoked salmon), soups, salads and savoury muffins. For the locals they also handily sell basic groceries including the Cobs Bakery bread and Wobbly Bottom farm goats cheese, which I am a big fan of.

Teacake is just around the corner from Shepreth train station, so easy to get to if you're in Cambridge and a perfect place to go if you're visiting Shepreth Wildlife Park for the day. They are open Wednesday to Sunday, 9am to 5pm. Find them on Facebook. 

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Tiffins Tea Emporium, Long Melford

I do love a day in Suffolk, it is a very picturesque area of the country and not too far from us but feels like such a change from normality. We were booked for a morning 'Owl Encounter' at Lavenham Falconry, and this fortuitous turn of events meant we could visit nearby Tiffins, who I'd been following/admiring on Twitter for a while.

Long Melford itself is beautiful and the tea room definitely lives up to its surroundings. A pretty little building with a tower of scones in the window, an array of cakes on stands, tea pots and lovely vintage style furniture.

Tiffins is run by the very cheery Kirstie who made us feel really welcome. We started with savoury - a goats cheese and pepper ciabatta for Mr and the intriguingly named Suffolk Ploughmans for me, cheese scones instead of bread - but toasted so the cheese is all melty and lovely - served with 'cheeky chutney' which was a lovely fresh salsa like chutney made with tomatoes. I had some of the Tiffins Blend loose tea and Mr some Suffolk apple juice.

Of course we had to have some cake too - and it was a tough decision - there is such a great choice of sweets - chocolate, coffee, lemon drizzle, victoria sponges, flapjacks, brownes, tiffin (of course) and fruit scones. Mr had a slice of pleasingly orangey Chocolate Marmalade cake with little white chocolate stars, and I had a coffee cake which was tooth achingly sweet - perfect for me. I had a bit of a sugar high upon leaving and then a crash later on in the afternooon...

We really enjoyed our lunch at Tiffins, it is a beautiful place and very relaxed surroundings. You can find them on Twitter and they have a website too. Do visit if you are in the area - Long Melford has some pretty shops and neighbouring Lavenham is a must see.

Oh and here is a picture of one of the owls we met!

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Gujarati Recipe Series - Handvo, Savoury Cake

This post marks the first in my series of Gujarati recipes! This is something I've been meaning to start for a long time and I have been encouraged by many of my twitter followers to do so too. I think it is pretty fitting to start off with a cake, but this time a savoury, spicy vegetable cake.

Handvo, or Andvo, is made from chickpea and semolina flour with carrots, peas, onion and sweetcorn, chili and ginger inside with a crispy top with mustard seeds on top. We always used to eat this on Saturday nights, with other snacky food like samosas - although it is a pretty filling meal in its own right.

Handvo
Makes one 18 x 6 cm dish (though will work in slightly bigger or smaller dishes)
You need to start this the day before you want to eat it. 
My cups are American cups, teacups also work well.

Part 1 - the day before
Ingredients
1 cup of coarse semolina flour
1 cup of chickpea (gram) flour
1 tsp of grated fresh ginger
1 - 2 green chillies (to taste)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 cup of natural yoghurt (my Mum said the cheaper the better as you want a nice tangy yoghurt!)
2 tbsp of groundnut, sunflower or mild olive oil
warm water - about 1/2 - 1 cup

Mix together all the ingredients except the water, add the water gradually to loosen the mixture til it is the texture of cake batter. Cover and leave in the fridge overnight (or up to 24 hours) when you want to use it remove from the fridge and bring to room temperature.

Part 2 - the next day
Ingredients
1 1/2 tsp of baking powder 
1 medium onion, diced
2 tbsp of frozen peas
2 tbsp of frozen or fresh sweetcorn
1 medium carrot, finely diced

Add all of the vegetables to the 'cake' mixture plus the baking powder, stir briefly (don't overwork the mix) to combine. Preheat your oven to 180c / gas mark 4. Grease and line your dish and pour in the mixture.

Mustard Topping
1 tsp of black mustard seeds (the yellow ones don't really work as well, try your local asian grocer or health food shop for black mustard seeds)
3 tbsp of groundnut, sunflower or mild olive oil

With your mixture ready in your dish and your oven heated up. Heat the oil in a high sided saucepan on a med/high hob. Put in the mustard seeds and quickly cover the saucepan with a lid. Allow the mustard seeds to pop for about 30 seconds. Turn off and remove from the heat and allow it to cool for about 1 minute. Then pour the oil and mustard seed mixture over the cake mixture in the dish.

Bake for 45 mins - 1 hour in your preheated oven. You want the top to be quite brown, possibly looking a little overdone (I erred on the side of caution here so mine is a bit paler than it should be). 

Handvo is supposed to be served hot so slice up as soon as it comes out of the oven, it is best served with a dollop of good old tomato ketchup! It is also great cold the next day

Am hoping to return soon with more Gujarati recipes, I've got lots of things I'd like to make next. I hope you might make this, its a great recipe to try if you like baking cakes.

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Hurray for Fitzbillies

All I can say really is YAY.

The Chelsea Bun is back, and also a whole host of other goodies. I'm so pleased Fitzbillies is back and improved, and also it is a proper bakery where everything is made there, and made properly. We've already had a chelsea bun each but we visited again at the weekend.

I had a perfect hot chocolate (made from ganache made in their kitchen) and a wonderful coffee choux bun. Mr Giraffe had a cheese chelsea bun which is simply an excellent twist on the classic sugary treat - topped with cheese and filled with more cheese, leeks and mustard.

The tea is also very good here, proper loose leaf served in a pot. We'll be back for the coffee and also for lunches.

The re-opening of Fitzbillies really makes it feel like Cambridge is edging towards being a decent place to eat.

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Gooseberry Crumble Cake

I think gooseberries can be a bit daunting. They are all hairy and a bit weird looking when raw, not to mention sour. But add a bit of sugar, cook them for a while and they are gorgeous. I tend to treat them like rhubarb, and my favourite thing to make with rhubarb is a crumble cake.

Crumble cakes (or coffee cakes as they are known in the USA, though they have no coffee) are impressive looking and tasting but really easy to make as they just combine two very basic recipes. They work particularly well with rhubarb and gooseberries as the double blanket of sugariness, batter and crumble, will make sure your fruit isn’t too tart.

I have previously made a rhubarb crumble cake (with a really bad photograph) but it was huge so I have dialled back the quantities a bit to make a slightly smaller cake. This is still a generous cake so will serve 6 people easily!

I made this cake with lots of vanilla and swapped half the flour for ground almonds to add more taste to the cake part. The crumble top was the basic equal parts of sugar, flour and butter mixture, and I sprinkled some more ground almonds on before baking which made the top extra crunchy.

The gooseberries are prepared very simply, I just topped and tailed them and sprinkled them with sugar.

Gooseberry Crumble Cake

Makes one 9 inch round cake

For the cake:
100g of softened salted butter
100g sugar
2 eggs
50g of ground almonds
50g of flour
1 teaspoon of vanilla paste or equal of vanilla extract
Splash of milk.
125g fresh gooseberries

Cream your sugar and butter together until nice and fluffy, then add the eggs in one by one and mix together after adding each. Then put your vanilla in and then fold in the almonds and flour. Mix to combine and then add a small splash of milk to loosen the mixture.
Pour into a greased and linked cake in.

Preheat your oven whilst you prepare the crumble and fruit. 170c /  gas mark 4

Top and tail your gooseberries. Cut the bigger ones in half but leave the smaller ones whole. Arrange on top of the cake batter and sprinkle with tablespoon of sugar.

For the crumble top:
50g butter
50g sugar
50g flour
Sprinkle of ground almonds

Rub together your butter and flour til it resembles breadcrumbs, and then add in your sugar. Sprinkle over the gooseberries, make sure they are fairly well covered but it doesn’t matter if they are peeking out a bit. Sprinkle over the almonds.

Bake in the oven for about 30 – 40 minutes until golden brown on top. It can be hard to tell if is done as the knife won’t come out clean, as long as it is cooked at a low temperature on a middle shelf it won’t burn.

Leave to cool, the cake will sink slightly. If you take it out the tin whilst it is warm it will collapse.

Slice and serve with custard, it is good with custard!

My gooseberries were from Walden Local Food, if you are nearby you must go and visit their market stall on a Saturday. I also came away with some fabulous plum tomatoes and some tender new season kale.

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