British Raspberry, Apricot and Almond cake

40 minutes prep, 20 minutes cook

Serves 12

Ingredients

75g unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing

100g dried apricots, chopped

juice and zest of 1 orange

75g Potter’s Herbals Malt Extract

100g almond butter

3 medium eggs

100g self raising flour

100g ground almonds

½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

150g raspberries

25g flaked almonds

½ tsp icing sugar (just for effect)

For the filling

125g mascarpone

125g double cream

1 tsp vanilla essence

150g raspberries

Method

Preheat the oven to 180’C/ 160’C fan/ gas mark 4. Grease and line 2 x 20cm round tins with baking paper.

Place the apricots and orange juice (100ml) in a pan, bring to a gentle simmer and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes, covered, until the apricots are fully softened and slightly broken down. Pour into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Add the butter and pulse until the butter has combined with the apricots and you have a thick puree. Pour into a bowl.

Beat the malt extract, almond butter and orange zest into the apricot mixture with an electric hand whisk then beat in the eggs, adding one egg at a time, adding in a spoonful of the flour after each. Beat in the remaining flour with the, ground almonds, baking powder and vanilla essence. Divide the mixture between the cake tins and sprinkle the raspberries onto one of the cakes with the flaked almonds, leaving the other cake plain. Press half of the raspberries into the cake mix leaving the other half sitting on top. Place into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, until just golden and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Beat the mascarpone, double cream and agave syrup in a bowl, with a spoon, until it can stand on its own in thick peaks. Spread onto the bottom cake (the one without the raspberries) then top with the raspberries. Top with the other cake and sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.