I have been meaning to make a Bakewell Tart for ages now and I haven’t got round to it. Tarts do seem a bit daunting – the tart base, the almondy filling. I bake cakes because, for the most part, they are dead simple. Hard to go wrong. Also, I am a sucker for all things almond and I have spent much of my hard earned on Gateaux Almond Fingers. I haven’t yet baked anything almondy as part of me was afraid that if it was a success, I would make it all the time and I would turn into an enormous fatty. My fate has been sealed with this Bakewellian Cake. I found this recipe (along with so many other fantastic recipes!) on The Caked Crusader’s blog, who originally borrowed it from Rosie at Baking Cakes Galore. They both baked the cherry version. I’m not a fan of cherry, and I recently bought a lovely jar of strawberry jam so I cracked it open for this recipe.
Here’s my version of the recipe (only a couple of changes)
What you need:
For the cake:
200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g caster sugar
100g ground almonds
100g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon almond extract
4 large eggs
For the filling and icing:
Approximately ½ a 340g jar of good quality strawberry jam
175g icing sugar
5-6 teaspoons water or lemon juice
2 tablespoons flaked almonds, lightly toasted
What to do:
The short version is ‘mix all the ingredients together’. I remember my Junior Cert home economics teacher ranting about pale and fluffy butter and sugar mixtures and so I always cream the butter and sugar first for fear of cake disaster, and then add the remaining ingredients gradually. And that’s what we’re doing here 
Grease two sandwich tins and line the bottom of the tins with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 190C/ 170C fan. Now get out the mixer and beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
That doesn’t look so pale. Dodgy lighting. Anyway, beat the eggs and almond extract. Bakewell is all about almond Sieve the flour and mix with the baking powder and ground almonds.
Beat in half the eggs, and follow with half the flour mixture. Mix well and add the rest of the eggs and flour and beat until well combined.
Divide the mixture between the two prepared tins and smooth out the top. I didn’t do such a great job of this so my cakes came out a bit lopsided.
Bake for 25-30 minutes. A skewer inserted into the cakes will come out clean when they are done. Cool in the tins for about 10 minutes and then turn out and cool fully on a wire rack.
A bit rough and ready. The bottom of the layers was also a little sugary and gooey at this point, which was worrying but that all sorted itself out as it cooled.
When fully cool (or sort of cool if you are as impatient as I am), spread a good quantity of jam on one of the spongey layers.
Drool…
Pop the other layer on top. Beat the icing sugar and water/lemon juice until smooth. Start with a little water and add more if necessary. My icing was a little too runny and dripped all over the place, so err on the thicker side. Spread over the cake. Decorate with some toasted flaked almonds. I only had plain flaked almonds so I dry fried them for a few minutes to toast them as suggested by The Caked Crusader. Drizzle over the top.
YUM!
The ground almonds make this cake so moist and it is amazing what a simple icing can do. It just lifts the cake. This is a real comfort food, not something you would proudly serve as a posh dessert to guests…it would wow with a cup of tea though.
Thank you Caked Crusader! 
