Almond and Kumquat Cakes – Recipe

These super soft, fluffy and moist little almond and kumquat cakes are made with whole kumquats blended into the cake batter for maximum flavour.

You can also see how I made these in my YouTube video:

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes 11–12 cupcake-sized cakes.)

Ingredients for Candied Kumquats:

5 kumquats, sliced into discs and de-seeded
150ml water
150ml caster sugar

Ingredients for Cakes:

125g butter
8 kumquats, topped (green bit at the top sliced off) and deseeded
150g ground almonds
30g self-raising flour
125g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
2 eggs

Ingredients for Icing:

150g icing sugar
2 tbsp milk (approx)
1 tsp vanilla

Method:

1. To make the candied kumquats, simply boil the sliced kumquats with the water and sugar for about five minutes or until translucent, then drain them and place on baking paper-lined baking sheet to dry overnight (you can speed this up by popping them in the oven on its lowest heat for a couple of hours).

2. To make the cakes, preheat the oven to 180°C, and purée the other (fresh, uncandied) kumquats with a hand blender.

3. Melt the butter and leave to cool a little while you stir the ground almonds, flour, sugar and salt together in a bowl. Stir in the eggs, puréed kumquats and cooled melted butter, divide between cupcake cases or mini silicone cake moulds, and bake for about 20 minutes or until risen and bouncy. Leave to cool completely, and then if you're using moulds pop the cakes out.

4. To make the icing, simply stir the icing ingredients together, using less or more milk depending on how thick or runny you want it. Then drizzle over your cakes however much you want, stick on a candied kumquat slice on each of them, and eat.

Enjoy, and have fun.