The Hard Drive and the Mashed Potato

Thursday 10 April 2014


























Do I need to explain my absence here or shall I just get on with it?  Sweep it under the carpet, dust off the blog and carry on...well, I'll tell you this, it's very dull.  My lap top hard drive failed, it took two weeks to fix but then I badly hurt my neck while washing my hair and couldn't type for another two weeks.  That's it, told you, unbelievably dull. This cake however, is anything but.

Back in the murky mists of time or February, I received a lovely card from my friends mother and inside was the recipe for this cake torn out of the Guardian.  I love post like this!  The cake not only sounded delicious, passion fruit and lime has to be a winner, but it also included mashed potato in the ingredients list.  This had to be tried immediately.  I had heard about mashed potato in gluten free cakes before.  I've had my eye on a recipe for a lemon drizzle version on BBC GoodFood for a while.  Don't be put off.  You really cannot tell the cake includes mashed potato and it gives the crumb a lovely moist texture and also makes the cake quite springy.















































Gluten Free Passion Fruit and Lime Drizzle Cake Recipe from The Guardian

150g soft butter
150g soft light brown sugar (I used demerara)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 passion fruit, pulp scooped out
Zest of 2 limes
300g cold mashed potato
200g ground almonds
2 teaspoons gluten free baking powder

For the topping:
*The original recipe calls for 175g icing sugar, sifted, Juice of 1-2 limes and 1 passion fruit, pulp scooped.
I had to adapt things here as I had no icing sugar and I'd run out of passion fruit so for my topping I used 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar and the juice of two limes.  I combined these in a saucepan and heated until the sugar had dissolved.

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4, 180C, 350F.
Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin.
In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then add the eggs and combine.  Stir in the passion fruit pulp, lime zest and mashed potato until you have a smooth batter.  Fold in the ground almonds and baking powder.
Transfer the batter in to the cake tin and bake for 1 1/4 hours until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.  If the top of the cake is getting a little too well done loosely cover with foil.  I found I needed to do this.
Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cake is cool user a skewer to create holes in the top of the cake and pour the topping mixture over.

4 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about your neck and computer troubles! I think you've more than made up with your absence with this cake though... I've never tried mashed potato in cake before but I have heard of it (I think perhaps from that same BBC Good Food recipe) and heard it gives an amazing texture so I'd love to try it out.

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    1. Thanks Aimee, I have been a very lax blogger. I hope you give the cake a try, it really is very delicious!

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  2. That is not a dull story- in fact pretty exciting. My story for not blogging usually goes like this: well.. I was busy....

    Anyway the cake's intriguing. Mashed potato?! That's the first I've heard of it. Definitely one to try. So far my go-to for GF cakes are based on ground almond, and though I love the grainy dense texture of almond cakes, I want to try something more springy/ cake-y. I can't say for sure of course but from the photo, it looks like mashed potato is doing the trick! Once I get a proper kitchen back, I'm going to do this!! And report back :)

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    1. Thanks Shu Han, I hope you give the cake a try. I look forward to hearing about it :)

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