Bakewell Bundt Cake

This is a cake I have been plotting for an absolute age. The Bakewell - king of desserts. A pudding masquerading as a cake. A tradition steeped so deep in history that its origin has been fought over for many years in its namesake home town. Pudding or tart, I am a fan of both. The wonderful frangipane filling, the sweetness of the ground almonds, the crisp base, and that wonderfully sticky jam. Perfect hot or cold, alone or with ice cream, the Bakewell has got to be one of my all time favourite desserts.

So I was thinking... bundts have that wonderfully crisp crust underneath, which would act as my 'pastry', I had some amazing raspberry jam from my friends at 'I Heart Jam' and I had a bit of an idea around those ground almonds too... Replacing flour with ground almonds gives a slightly coarser, but very moist texture - boom, frangipane. I just needed to check whether it would all work!

This month's cake club theme was 'Sweet Dreams (are made of this), so it was the perfect arena to try out my cake chemistry experiment. It worked like an absolute dream. This has to be one of my favourite bundts I have ever made. Even my friend Dave, who describes Bakewell tarts as (and I quote) 'muck', loved it.

Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 1.5 tsp almond extract
• 300g plain flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 250ml low fat plain yogurt
• 5 tbsp raspberry jam 
• 300g icing sugar
• 50g toasted flaked almonds

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 C
2. Grease and flour a regular sized bundt tin - 2.4l, 10 cup, 10 inch. 
3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
5. Add the extract.
6. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, ground almonds, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
7. Sift in a third of the flour mix followed by half the yogurt. Repeat this until everything is combined. 
8. Tip in any almond bits caught in the sieve.
9. Give everything a quick mix on a low speed for about 10 seconds.
10. Pour 3/4 of the mix into the prepared tin. 
11. Smear over a thick layer of jam, avoiding the edges.
12. Cover with the remaining mix.
13. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. It should be shrinking from the sides of the tin slightly.
14. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin. 
15. Allow it to cool fully. 
16. Mix the icing sugar with enough water to make a fairly runny icing and dollop it over your cake. The quicker the better!
17. Garnish with toasted almonds. 

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and basic recipe. Blood, sweat and many tears have gone into getting this right, so you may enjoy a perfect bundt. If you wish to re-blog a recipe from these variations, please credit my blog and link to this original post rather than pasting the recipe on your own page. 

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