Apricot and almond cake

I have had a slight obsession with cooking almond cakes at the moment, and in France there were loads of delicious apricots so I ended up making lots of different styles of cakes. They are really gooey and zesty and very tasty and everyone loved them.

This one was my favourite because I put apricots in the middle and on the top.

200g unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

200g ground almonds

40g plain flour

4 eggs

zest of 1 orange

zest of 1 lemon

1 tbsp apricot liqueur or cointreau

8 apricots

sliced almonds for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 170˚C.

Using an electric whisk cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy then mix in the eggs, zest and juice and booze and fold in the flour.

Slice the apricots in half and then slice each half into thirds and chuck into a bowl and sprinkle with some caster sugar and leave for 10 mins.

Pour half the cake mixture into a lined cake tin and layer on half the apricots, then pour the rest of the mixture on top and prettily arrange the rest of the apricots on top. Sprinkle on some sliced almonds and put in the oven. I don't have an exact time but it normally take about 45mins to an hour, as long as it's not burning then it's fine to stay in but you need to make sure the middle rises and when a skewer is inserted it should come out clean.

When ready leave to cool for at least an hour before turning out.

River cafe polenta, almond and lemon cake

This week has been a bit up and down with the weather, lots of rain and then an absolute scorcher yesterday in the 30˚s. Yesterday was an especially good day because not only did I get a little bit less pasty but I also stood up on my surfboard about 10 times!! I did almost die about twice getting absolutely smashed by waves and ended up with my hair looking a bit like a loo brush but very happy!! Since the weather has been crappy I made a huge cake, and I think this could be my newest most favourite cake I have ever made. I have been trawling through my River cafe books and there is so much amazing stuff so since I have all kinds of great ingredients on my door step I am going to go nuts and try loads this month. Serves 12 450g unsalted butter, softened 450g caster sugar 450g ground almonds 2 teaspoons good vanilla essence 6 free range eggs zest of 4 lemons juice of 1 lemon 225g polenta flour or fine semolina 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon of salt Preheat the oven to 160˚

Poached Pear Crumble

Lots of pears and apples around it being winter and all, so I got all english at the weekend and made crumble with poached pears. By poaching the fruit the crumble tastes pretty different and less sugary in my opinion, you could poach apples too I guess and I like to mix half poached with half not so you get a different texture and taste. Poaching liquid 100ml of caster sugar to 200ml of water...use depending on how many pears you poach and should cover all the pears in a big pan cinnamon stick 2 Star Anise 1 bit of peeled lemon rind 1 Pear per person (best to use harder pears not very ripe ones) Heat the poaching liquid and spices, lemon rind until the sugar has dissolved. Peel half the pears whole and place in the poaching liquid and cover with a round piece of parchment paper. Bring liquid to a low simmer and they should cook for about 20-30 mins depending on how ripe the pears were at the start. You should be able to stick a knife through. Take them off the heat and let them cool i

I ♥ Biarritz

I recently returned from a girls surf trip to Biarritz. I say surf trip but it was more of a food, wine, shopping, lying horizontally on beaches and perving on lots of incredible male surfers torsos trip. We were six girls, and I think we scared the locals from our noisy behaviour talking loudly about all kinds of inappropriate subjects and drinking too much of the local Basque liquor Manzana, which they seem to just hand out and act surprised when one of you is spider pigging on the ceiling. Biarritz is located in the Basque region next to Spain so the food has a massive Spanish influence with loads of tapas bars and Spanish meats, plenty of seafood and salt cod around the place as well as the famous spice piment d'espelette and the delicious Gâteau Basque. We shopped in the market which is open everyday till 1pm to get all our food and cooked up a storm most evenings when we stayed in, however there are loads of really good restaurants and bars which we of course had to sample to

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