I wasn’t fond of gooseberries as a child and I told everyone the reason for that was because they made me ‘blink’.  I was right.  They can be lip pursing-ly sour and even the sweetest need sugar.  What’s more, they are spiteful to pick, with thorns like spears.

Gooseberry Fool was the only way I was prepared to eat them.  Now, I’ve branched out but it’s still important to treat them with love – which is probably why they’re not so easy to find.  If you don’t grow them yourself you’re more likely to find gooseberries at farm shops and farmers’ markets than at the supermarket.

(Please note the artistic positioning of gooseberries and elderflowers in this photo.)

The parent recipe of this cake features in my mum’s recipe collection as ‘Apple Cake’ and I suspect it will have entered my mum’s life via a ‘parish cookbook’; the kind that’s produced by fantastic home cooks in aid of their Grade I listed 12th bell towers and my mum would always buy when on holiday.  Warm from the oven, it’s lovely with cream or custard and eaten as a pudding.  Cold, it’s perfect picnic and packed lunch food.

Gooseberry and elderflower is an early summer switch away from apple.

It’s a wonderfully simple cake and easy to scale up or down.  It’s the same weight of flour and fruit, in this case gooseberries.  Half the weight of the flour in sugar and the same of butter.  A little baking powder and milk to mix.  That’s it.

No eggs – which is useful if you’re baking for someone who reacts to the protein in eggs.

14oz/380g plain flour, mixed with 2½ tsp baking powder.

7oz/190g butter ‘rubbed in’.  Using just the tips of your fingers you lightly ‘rub in’ small cubes of butter.

If you aren’t as washing up phobic as I am you could blitz the flour, sugar and butter together in a food processor.  Breadcrumbs is the usual way to describe the result you are hoping for but I think sandy rubble is closer to what I aim for in this kind of cake.

Stir through the sugar.

There is no escaping this bit.  Topping and tailing.  Pinch off the top and the tail with your fingers.

You are left with what looks like veiny grapes.  In order to prevent the gooseberries sinking you need to cut them in half or quarters, depending on their size.

Stir the prepared gooseberries through the flour mixture.

Now for the elderflower cordial.  If you haven’t made this, there are commercial versions available.

I melt butter to lightly grease the sides and bottom of my cake tin.  In an ideal world (the kind where days are longer than twenty-four hours and university student children didn’t want their washing done) I would line the sides.  Truthfully, I rarely do for a cake like this and I have pre-cut bake o’ glide to fit my tin collection.

Now, it’s the liquid.  75ml/2½ fl oz of undiluted elderflower cordial.

You’ll need a little milk.  Go careful.

You want a dry mix rather than a more usual cake batter.  The gooseberries will release lots of moisture.

Level out the top.  To get a nice flat top, I use the back of a spoon.  If you dunk it in water first, so much the better.

An 20cm round cake tin cooks in the Aga Baking Oven (rack on the floor) in 1 hour.  Conventionally, it’s 180ºC/Gas Mark 4/350ºF.

If you want you can sprinkle the warm cake with a little caster sugar.

I forgot.  Since we were eating this warm with pouring double cream I don’t know that it mattered.

Eat.

Gooseberry and Elderflower Cake

Makes 1 20cm/8″ round cake or a 20cm x 25cm tray bake.

• 380g/14oz plain flour
• 190g/7oz butter
• 190g/7oz caster sugar
• 2½ tsp baking powder
• 380g/14oz gooseberries, top and tailed, then halved or quartered depending on their size
• 75ml/2½fl oz elderflower cordial
• A drizzle of milk, as needed

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC/Gas Mark 4/350ºF

Add the baking powder to the flour and whisk to combine.

Rub the cold cubed butter into the flour, then add the sugar and prepared gooseberries.

Drizzle over the elderflower cordial and use a knife to stir through.  Add a drizzle of milk to make a dry mix, remembering the gooseberries will release lots of juice as the cake cooks.

Bake for 1 hour, turning halfway if necessary.  (Aga:  Baking Oven with the rack on the floor – 1 hour.)

Sprinkle with caster sugar, if desired.  Allow to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.  Serve warm with cream or custard or cold.

Eat.

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It’s been a cold and blowy week and I’ve hidden myself away making marmalade – which is a strange way to introduce Madeira Cake, but stay with me.

It all begins with Seville oranges – which are a ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ thing.  Imported, obviously.  You have to buy them when you see them.  Aside from vats of marmalade I like to make a Seville Orange Tart.  It’s a once in the year event, which is one of the things I love most about it.  For that I need 55g of Madeira Cake.

So, that’s how I got here.  Madeira cake for packed lunches and a ‘hidden-away’ slice for the Seville Orange Tart.

Madeira Cake is a really old fashioned cake.  The first recipes appear in the eighteenth century, but I doubt my ancestors were eating it.  It was luxury.  At a time when genteel ladies offered their afternoon callers ‘some refreshment’ Madeira Cake might have been served with a glass of Madeira, which is a Portuguese fortified wine.  That’s how it gets its name.

Start by preparing the 18cm/7″ cake tin.  I use melted butter and place a circle of baking parchment at the bottom.  Pre-heat the oven to 160ºC/325ºF/Gas Mark 3.

The cake mixture begins with softened butter.  Give it a quick beat and then add the sugar.

This stage always takes longer than you think it should and the paler you can get it the better.  Spare a minute to the poor souls who did it all by hand.

Have your flour ready.  I sieve to get more air in and combine the two flours together.

Now the room temperature eggs.  Add them one at a time and beat in really thoroughly.  A spoonful of the flour will also help stop the mixture curdling.  Curdling is best described as a cake batter with cellulite.  It happens for a number of reasons – if you add fridge cold eggs, don’t add them singly and/or beat them in enough.  You can rescue a curdled mixture by adding more flour and beating it in but your cake will be a little ‘heavier’.

Then add the grated rind of half a lemon.  (Save the other half.)

‘Fold’ in the flour.  That’s a gentle cutting movement.  Your aim is not to bash the air out of the mixture.  Just imagine you’ve been beating with a wooden spoon and you’ll treat it with care.

Add the juice of half a lemon.  You’ll get more juice from a warm lemon.

Combine the reserved lemon rind with the unused juice from the second half and freeze.  There’ll be a next time.

Put the cake mixture into the tin and smooth the top.  I like to decorate my Madeira Cake with some pieces of candied orange peel, but it’s not necessary.  Post Christmas I tend to have some handy.  Then bake.

Leave the cake to cool in the tin for about ten minutes.

The easiest way to release the cake from the tin is to rest the tin on a can and ease the sides down.

Transfer to a cooling rack.

My mum’s pressed glass cake stand seems the right way to serve it.  Maybe not Madeira wine?  I like a cup of tea.

Eat.

Madeira Cake

Makes one 18cm/7″ round cake

• 175g/6oz butter
• 175g/6oz caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 150g/5oz self raising flour
• 100g/4oz plain flour
• grated rind and juice of ½ unwaxed lemon
• candied peel to decorate (optional)

Grease and line the base of an 18cm/7″ round cake tin and pre-heat the oven to 160ºC/325ºF/Gas Mark 3.

Beat the butter and sugar together until it is pale.

Add the room temperature eggs, one at a time.  Beat well.  A little flour added with each egg will lessen the risk of the mixture curdling.

Gently fold in the flours, then add the rind and lemon juice.  Transfer the mixture to the tin and level the top.  Decorate with candied peel if liked.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 1-1¼ hours.  Aga:  Bake on the grid shelf on the floor of the Baking Oven with a sheet of bake-o-glide resting on top of the tin for 40 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Eat.

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