Fruit Salad Cake — biscuit base, sweetened cream, fruit salad & stem ginger
If you love fruit and stem ginger, you’ll love this. I do. You top a baked biscuit biscuit base with cream whipped up with natural yoghurt and flavoured with fresh mint, stem ginger and syrup, a little vanilla and lemon zest. Then you place a salad of fresh fruit sweetened with stem ginger syrup on top and grate over some stem ginger.
I love this dessert. And I think it’s perfect for autumn or winter. In summer you can’t beat a mix of perfectly ripe and sweet fruit dressed in nothing more than some fresh lemon juice. But when there’s a chill in the air I tend to want treats that have more sugar and fat. I also love love love stem ginger in syrup. If you do too, you will love this.
Fruit Salad Cake
Yield: Makes 9″ cake
Suitable for: Gluten-free diet
Ingredients:
- Gluten-free ginger cookies
- 150g pecan nuts
- 55g butter
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- Stem ginger in syrup
- 4 fresh mint sprigs.
- ~250ml double cream
- vanilla bean paste
- zest of 1 lemon
- 4 tbsp whole natural yoghurt
- 1 ripe mango, peeled, stoned & diced
- ½ small sweet melon (honeydew or cantaloupe), peeled, deseeded & diced
- ~200g pomegranate seeds
- 1 passion fruit, seeds
- 150g blueberries
- 150g raspberries
- 2 red or golden kiwis, peeled & sliced
Instructions:
Prepare the fruit
Place all the cut fruit and seed in a large collander over a bowl. Spoon over a tablespoon of stem ginger syrup and carefully mix around. Scatter in the berries and spoon over another teaspoon of the syrup. Cover the collander with a clean teacloth and leave at room temperature. This helps some excess moisture drain from the fruit.Make & bake the biscuit base
Turn the oven on to 180° C. Place the pecans in a food mixer and mix until they are all chopped. Add in the ginger cookies and mix until everything is reduced to crumbs. Melt the butter the butter in the microwave - should only take about 20 seconds. Pour the melted butter into the mixer with a ¼ teaspoon of ground cinnamon and mix again. If you are using unsalted butter mix in a good pinch of salt too. Scrape the mix into a 9 inch cake tin and pat flat to cover the base. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Take out and allow to cool completely in the tin.Make the cream filling
Finely chop the leaves of the fresh mint sprigs. Finely grate about 2 inches of stem ginger. Pour the double cream into a large bowl. Whip until it starts to thicken. Add in the natural yoghurt and whip until it starts to form soft peaks. Add in a tablespoon of fresh mint, the grated stem ginger with one tablespoon of syrup, a half teaspoon of vanilla bean paste and a good pinch of lemon zest. Gently beat in and taste. Add more mint or syrup if desired.Assemble & chill to set
Spread most of the sweetened whipped yoghurt-cream over the cooled biscuit base. Top with drained fruit. Dot the fruit layer with the remaining cream and a little grated stem ginger. Spoon over a tablespoon of the ginger syrup. Leave to chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Enjoy!
