Fruit Cake
Raise your hand if you like cake.
Now jump up and down if you'd like a cake that takes hardly any time at all to make and is so healthy that it's perfectly acceptable to eat two slices at a time. As an added bonus, it tastes disgracefully good too.
I made a Simnel cake (sort of, it's more a cheat version) which can be disguised as a fruit cake, so even though Easter is no longer with us, you still have an excuse to make one!
Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!
Yup, that's bee pollen on top!
I'd recommend making more almond marzipan because once you start tasting it, you're going to want more and more and more. Almonds are renowned for their numerous health benefits such as being a great source of Vitamin E, manganese, biotin, magnesium, riboflavin etc. Basically, it's packed full of the good stuff that your body loves. Sometimes though, just snacking on nuts is difficult because there's not much excitement and I'm not going to lie, it makes me feel like a squirrel. So sneaking them into your baking is a great way to get in those nutrients and it tastes much better!
Ingredients
For the cake...
85g softened butter (or coconut oil)
25g ground almonds
150g mixed dried fruit
1 small orange (zest and juice)
1 small lemon (zest and juice)
85g coconut sugar
85g spelt flour (or buckwheat if gluten is a no go for you!)
2 small eggs lightly beaten
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
For the marzipan (almond paste)...
200g ground almonds
1 tsp almond extract
Handful of dates
4 tbsp maple syrup
Method
For the cake...
Preheat oven to 180C
Line a small cake tin with greaseproof paper
Beat together the sugar and butter until fluffy and light
Whisk in 1 tbsp of the flour then add the eggs a little at a time. Mix well!
Sift in the rest of the flour and sides.
Fold in the dried fruit and almonds and spoon into a cake tin.
Bake for around an hour, making sure it's golden and firm to touch.
For the marzipan..
Put all ingredients into a food processor and whizz up until it forms a dough
Roll out and place on top of cake once it has cooled down!
Hope you enjoyed today's recipe!