Spinach and Mascarpone Cake
Uughhh... I hear you cry! But just hang on a minute, read on, and you could be pleasantly surprised.
You've only got to look at my website and photography to realise that I love food. Not surprising really, as I've spent a lot of my time working in the catering industry and live with a chef.
I first tried this cake when visiting one of our catering sites. The Manager said to me "You must try the spinach cake before you leave". Spinach cake, I thought. Sounds vile I thought, while I said 'yes please' and smiled politely.
Ingredients
for the cake
3 eggs
5g salt
230g caster sugar
260g sunflower oil
300g plain flour
15g baking powder
300g spinach (finished weight, cooked and pureed)
2 lemons zested
10ml lemon juice
For the filling
200g full fat cream cheese
100g mascarpone
40g caster sugar
10ml vanilla extract
If i'm honest and even though I consider myself a bit of a foodie, I can be a baby when it comes to trying new things — spinach in a cake, would it be sweet or would it be savoury? — and I'm not particularly a fan of the leafy green stuff, so I knew I wasn't going to like it ...
Well, i couldn't have been more wrong. It was delicious and looked stunning with it's vibrant green colour. In fact, I liked it so much that I found a recipe online, baked it, photographed it and used it in a Christmas recipe book that I produced — it went down a storm, surprising and delighting customers in equal measure.
If you think about it, spinach isn't really that strange an ingredient after all; we're very used to carrot, parsnip, courgette and beetroot in cakes, which all make for a lovely moist sponge. This cake is so light, totally moreish, and not too sweet either. I defy even those that don't normally like cake not to like this one.
Bold statement I know, but trust me, you really have to try it.
So, onto the baking.,.
Cook the spinach in a pan for a few minutes until wilted. I used two big bags of spinach, (cooked in batches) which only made 200g as the finished weight. The recipe does call for 300g, so you may want to get another bag, but honestly, it didn't seem to make any difference to the cake.
Once the spinach is wilted, wash under the tap — this will help retain it's vibrant green colour.
Next, squeeze out any excess moisture and blitz to a smooth puree with a stick blender. The first time I made this cake, I used a mini food processor instead and it didn't blitz, it just chopped, resulting in a cake that tasted great but wasn't as green. Definitely use a stick blender!
TIP: If you think the puree has got too thick, just add a little more water.
Next put 3 eggs, 5g salt and 230g caster sugar in a bowl and beat until light in colour.
Then continue to beat while gradually adding 260g of sunflower oil.
Next add the spinach puree, zest of 2 lemons and 10ml of lemon juice to the mixture.
Sieve 300g of plain flour and 15g of baking powder and fold into the mixture, a bit at a time, making sure there are no lumps.
Place the mixture into two greased and lightly floured 22cm sandwich tins.
Bake at 170°c for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Depending on how your oven behaves or how wet your mixture is, it may need a little longer. But if a skewer comes out clean and it's starting to come away at the sides of the tin then it's definitely done!
For the Filling / Topping:
Place the 200g of full fat cream cheese, 100g of mascarpone, 40g of caster sugar and 10ml of vanilla extract in a bowl and beat together.
Once the cakes are cooled, slice the top off one of them, saving the off-cuts to decorate and crumble over the topping.
Then sandwich the two cakes together using half of the filling and place the remainder of the filling on top of the cake.
Finally decorate with the crumbled off-cuts onto the top of the cake and add some fresh berries. I used raspberries in this instance but you can use whatever you like; pomegranates and blueberries also look nice.
And there you have it. A super surprising #showstopper of a #cake that everyone will love and it also includes one of your five-a-day, so it must be good for you...right?!
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