Raspberry and almond sponge

Ingredients

114 g Self-raising flour (or plain flour with 1 tsp baking powder)
114 g caster sugar
114 g butter or margarine
2 eggs whisked gently
Few drops of vanilla or almond essence
1 punnet of raspberries
Handful of almonds

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/gas mark 4-5.
2. Cream together the butter, sugar and essence until light and fluffy.
3. Sieve flour into the bowl before adding the eggs and whisking thoroughly.
4. Add the raspberries and gently fold through mixture.
5. Pour into a greased oven dish or lined cake/loaf tin and sprinkle with almonds.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a knife comes out clean.

Tips

Replace the raspberries with any other fruit you may have that needs using up, for example bananas, blueberries, apples, pineapple, or even dried fruit if you can’t get any fresh.

Either omit or replace the almonds with other nuts lurking at the back of your cupboard, eg walnuts.

If you have eggs, sugar, cornflour, vanilla essence or pod and milk you can make delicious homemade custard to go with the sponge as follows:

1. Warm 300ml milk with a few drops of vanilla in a pan until warm.
2. Whisk together 2 large eggs, 1 tbsp caster sugar and 1/2 tbsp cornflour until pale and fluffy.
3. Add warm milk bit by bit until combined and cook over a low heat, stirring until thickened.

Alternatively, if you have custard powder but are short on milk, you can still make it as per instructions but replace the majority of the milk with water. It won’t be quite as creamy but once poured over your scrummy sponge you will hardly notice!

* Contain nuts.