Almond, lemon and raspberry cake

Just sweet enough, this almond and lemon cake with raspberries is wonderfully simple. It had been a long time since I’d used one of Nigella’s recipes, and I’d almost forgotten how easy they can be – just put all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz! This time Nigella surprised me: there’s no butter or wheat flour here. The cake is gluten-free, made simply with ground almonds and cornmeal (finely ground polenta). The children absolutely loved it. It’s delicious, especially while still warm, when, as the author herself puts it, it has ‘the breath of the oven’ still inside…

Ingredients for the almond and lemon cake:

• 150 ml light olive oil or rapeseed/sunflower oil
• zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
• 125 g caster sugar
• 150 g ground almonds
• 75 g finely ground polenta (or yellow cornmeal – not cornflour!)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (use gluten-free if necessary)
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 3 large eggs

Additionally:

• 150 g frozen or fresh raspberries (do not thaw them first)

All the cake ingredients should be at room temperature.

Place all the cake ingredients in a food processor, except the lemon juice, and blitz until combined and you have a smooth, light yellow batter.

Pour the batter into a 20 x 20 cm square tin lined with baking paper. Arrange the raspberries evenly over the top – some of them will sink into the cake as it bakes.

Bake at 180°C for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (I baked mine for about 15 minutes longer). Remove from the oven and, while still warm, drizzle the lemon juice over the top of the cake. Cut into squares. You can also dust with icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Recipe source: Nigella Lawson ‘Simply Nigella: feel good food’.