The Bakewell Cake

My family has a particular penchant for Bakewell.  It was always the most cunning and prepared that would manage to get the largest piece of even the Battenburg!  From as early as I can remember, pudding was the time where family politics would be at its best and be the test of Mother's patience and diplomacy.  Funnily enough my boys have not had this experience of family cake politics but they do hear endless tales and contentions from me on mass produced cakes.


My latest bake of contention is about The Bakewell!  Part of my market research is buying cakes, testing, tasting, tearing apart and reconstructing.  I was drawn to a very attractive Cherry Bakewell that I bought from a supermarket.  Honestly, I'd give it 10/10 for presentation and packaging.  A family tasting ensued with grumbles of discontent.  Firstly, and one of my bug bears, it was far too sweet.  It had a taste of almond flavour so I checked the ingredient list and the lone almonds were one of the last ingredients listed, which means that it has the least amount in the cake.  I called the shop and asked for the almond % and to my absolute amazement and disgust, it had 0.7% almonds in it!!


So, I set about on a field trip of supermarkets only to find that almonds in a Bakewell are not the star feature.  I know almonds are not cheap at £14.00 per kilo but...

  • Love Pure Cakes put 26% almonds into their Bakewell!

One supermarket didn't have any almonds in their Battenburg, it was 25% Persipan!
It gets better, the next supey put 1% in and another 2% in their bakewell
Waitrose faired best with 10% almonds... finally!


It's worth taking a keen interest in the ingredients on labels in order to choose quality and make an informed choice.  In my experience, the supermarkets will respond to your queries, even if the answer is not quite what you expected.


Battenburg was invented to honour Queen Victoria's grand daughter's marriage to Prince Louis of Bettenberg.


Almonds are, botanically classed as a fruit.  The Latin derivative means tonsil plum and was used in Greece for medicinal purposes to sooth the throat.  Suffice to say, it is the widest eaten tree nut on our planet.


Mmm Bakewell.. part of your 5 a day!


This is my first day of a cake-only diet and I feel great.  I'll update on the fun of inventing and eating cake all day.


Loving cakes as always,


Lorna x












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