Gluten Free: Lemon, cardamom and blueberry torte

(Another from the Waitrose Magazine archives…I’ll give you some of my own recipes soon enough!)

Whether you’re an unfortunate celiac or gluten intolerant, or you like to do without that patented post-gluten sluggish feeling this is an excellent gluten free torte which is perfect to combat the mid-afternoon “4 o’clock-ish” feeling.

Serves 6-8 (and then some)

Ingredients:

125g unsalted butter, softened

200g golden caster sugar

(regular caster is fine but this adds a lovely syrup-y flavour without the gloop)

10 green cardamom pods, seeds finely crushed

1tsp vanilla extract

3 eggs

250g ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

200g fresh blueberries

For the Lemon Drizzle Icing

250g golden icing sugar

1 small lemon, zest and juice

handful toasted flaked almonds

– my mouth is watering just writing out the ingredients!

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 170 C, gas mark 3. Grease and line a springform tin about 23cm with baking paper. Cream the butter, sugar, ground cardamom and vanilla extract in a bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each one. Add a spoonful of the ground almonds if you need to stop the mixture from splitting.
• Fold in the baking powder, salt and remaining almonds. Fold in the blueberries. Tip into the cake tin and bake for 35-45 minutes until golden, risen and firm to the touch. A skewer inserted should come out clean with a few crumbs.
• Leave to cool in the tin for 30 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely
• For the icing, put the icing sugar in a bowl with the lemon zest and stir in the lemon juice with a fork gradually until it reaches a runny consistency (Tip: run the lemon juice through a sieve to avoid getting small bits of lemon flesh in your icing and keep it silky smooth). If you need more liquid when all the juice is used up you can add a drop of water. It should be just runny enough to spread over the torte. Once you’ve spread the icing over the cool torte scatter it with toasted almonds.

Per Serving (8) 604 kcals, 34g fat, 10.6g saturated fat, 64.3g carbs, 62g sugars, 0.4g salt

Photo and Recipe credit to Waitrose Kitchen Magazine