Apricot and Almond Cake
Gluten free apricot and almond cake. A mix of apricots, ground almonds, eggs, butter and sugar – and of course a little vanilla extract. It’s easy and oh-so-yummy!
There is a great recipe for a dairy-free gluten-free lemon cherry cake here made with ground almonds and olive oil. This recipe is very similar but with less added sugar, no lemon and using butter instead of olive oil. If you wanted to make this one dairy-free you could substitute olive oil but maybe add in a squeeze of lemon juice or lime juice and a spoonful more of sugar.
Where I got the inspiration for the lemon cherry cake was this recipe for chocolate olive oil cake by Nigella Lawson. I love cakes make with ground almonds. One thing though – be sure not to overwork the ground almonds if you beat them to much or make the batter in the food processor it can give your cake a marzipan taste. It’s funny, I love almonds and things made with almonds – but I really don’t like marzipan.
I used butter here rather than olive oil because baking apricots with butter and sugar is just bound to always be good.
Ingredients
- 75g sweet butter, softened
- 100g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 150g ground almonds
- 4 - 6 just-ripe apricots
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Grease a 9" cake tin and line the bottom with baking paper. Turn on the oven to 160 C.
- Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and eggs together in a bowl. When they are a well combined creamy mix stir in the ground almonds until everything is combined.
- Cut the apricots into halves or quarters, discard the stones. Place the apricot slices into the lined cake tin. Cover with the batter. Place in the oven for 60 minutes. The top will be brown and look very done but this is a moist cake - I find it needs the full 60 minutes.
- Take out of the oven and leave to cool. When cool turn out onto a place and dust with icing sugar for decoration. Enjoy with a good cup of coffee!
