A delicious cake filled and decorated with British raspberries. The gentle apricot puree brings out the natural sweetness from the malt and the almond butter gives a lovely dense structure to the sponge.
Serves: 12
Prep time: 30-40 minutes, plus cooling
Cook time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
75g unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
100g dried apricots, chopped
juice and zest of 1 orange
75g Potter’s Herbals Malt Extract
100g almond butter
3 medium eggs
100g self raising flour
100g ground almonds
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
150g raspberries
25g flaked almonds
½ tsp icing sugar (just for effect)
For the filling
125g mascarpone
125g double cream
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 tsp vanilla essence
150g raspberries
Method
1.) Preheat the oven to 180C, 160C fan, gas 4. Grease and line 2 x 20cm round tins with baking paper.
2.) Place the apricots and orange juice (100ml) in a pan, bring to a gentle simmer and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes, covered, until the apricots are fully softened and slightly broken down. Pour into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Add the butter and pulse until the butter has combined with the apricots and you have a thick puree. Pour into a bowl.
3.) Beat the malt extract, almond butter and orange zest into the apricot mixture with an electric hand whisk then beat in the eggs, adding one egg at a time, adding in a spoonful of the flour after each. Beat in the remaining flour with the, ground almonds, baking powder and vanilla essence. Divide the mixture between the cake tins and sprinkle the raspberries onto one of the cakes with the flaked almonds, leaving the other cake plain. Press half of the raspberries into the cake mix leaving the other half sitting on top. Place into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, until just golden and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
4.) Beat the mascarpone, double cream and agave syrup in a bowl, with a spoon, until it can stand on its own in thick peaks. Spread onto the bottom cake (the one without the raspberries) then top with the raspberries. Top with the other cake and sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.
