I promised you cake and here it is and what a great day to be given cake… its Friday !!! I love baking on a Friday as it means that we have cake for the weekend and I love nothing better than a nice piece of cake with my morning espresso, especially if the sun is out and I can have breakfast in the garden. Also you all know how much Myself and My Family love having afternoon tea together, so always a good excuse when there is cake sitting on the side in the kitchen, if it ever lasts that long !!
I saw this cake on Facebook, baked by one of the girls I follow, I can not remember who it was and I am sorry that I can not add a link to her page, but when I find out who it was I will add the link. The reason that it caught my eye was that it was gluten free, I am always on the look out for gluten free cakes that taste delicious and not taste like they are missing or lacking normal flour, this is because my lovely friend of 27 years Lynette is a coeliac. When I first met her all those years ago it was so hard to find good gluten free anything, let alone recipes but now as we all recognise that our bodies are suffering from certain chemicals, milk, wheat, etc, there are so many lovely things to chose from, to cook and to bake.
This cake is very simple, a bit fiddly blanching and peeling the peaches but you could always cheat and buy tinned, but the taste is amazing, it is so light and because it is so moist you can serve it as a dessert with cream or custard, but it really delivers on flavour when eaten by itself. Rosie said that it tasted like the amaretti biscuits that Luca and I love, which comes from the lovely French almond extract that I used, but it reminds me of a very light and fluffy frangipane, the sprinkling of sugar on top of the cake even gives it that lovely sweet crust that frangipane has. I am going to try this with pears, I love them and I think it would work so well, but you could take the gluten free basics of this recipe and try it with any fruit that you like, just change the almond extract to vanilla or what ever you feel would compliment the fruit that you are using and that is in season.
Well this cake was a hit, not only with Lynette, but also with my friend Andrea, we all spent a very lovely afternoon together drinking tea and enjoying this cake, we chatted, we giggled and the world was well and truly put to rights! The best way to enjoy cake it always with others and that is why I love to bake.
Buon appetito
Oven 150C/ 300F/ Gas Mark 2
Grease and line a 23cm loose bottomed tin.
4 medium peaches (firm, but ripe)
150g ground almonds
110g unsalted butter (melted)
300g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon French almond extract (I think I may of used 1 teaspoon but hey, it was delicious, so not a problem!)
2 large free-range eggs
6 tablespoons gluten-free self-raising flour (I used Dove Farms, it really good)
1 tablespoon caster sugar to sprinkle over the cake
Blanch the peaches and remove the skin. I popped mine in a bowl, poured a kettle of boiling water over them, left them for 10 minutes and they then peeled really easily. Cut the peaches in half, remove the stone and slice thinly. Its a bit messy !
Beat the eggs and sugar until it is thick and really creamy, you want to get as much air into your batter as possible.
Slowly add the melted butter and almond extract, mix well. Make sure that your butter is not to hot, you do not want scrambled eggs!
Carefully fold in the grounds almonds and flour.
Add 2/3rds of the sliced peaches and mix gently into the batter.
Pour the batter into your prepared tin.
Arrange the remaining peaches on top of the batter and sprinkle with the 1 tablespoon of caster sugar.
Place in the centre of your oven and bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes, this is how long it took in my oven, but the recipe suggests between 1 hour 10 to 1 hour 30, so just keep an eye on it and judge it by your own oven. A skewer inserted into the middle of the cake will come out clean when the cake is cooked.
Note : The recipe says that you can also use 6 tablespoons of rice flour with 1 teaspoon of gluten free baking powder, or 6 tablespoons of normal self-raising flour if you don’t require the recipe to be gluten free 🙂
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