Frangipane Fly-Away Cakes

These aren’t pure frangipane, being more of a sponge/almond hybrid, so perhaps they should be called frangi-fairies.

Whatever you want to call them, they are light and delicious and are just the sort of thing you could rustle up with whatever you have in your dry cupboard, plus a quick dash to the local shop if absolutely necessary. They’ve come about as we desperately try, in our pre-move purge, to use up whatever happens to be languishing in a crumpled bag, stuffed into the back of the larder shelf - most probably past its sell-by date.

Using sis-in law Jemima’s failsafe sponge-cake formula, you match the flour/almond mix, sugar and butter weight to that of the eggs. Two eggs seemed to make batter for 6 good-sized fairies. However, following our Shed outing, I love the idea of 12 bite-sized versions - pixies if you like - nestled into twists of baking paper.

 

You need:

116g caster sugar

116g butter

2 eggs – (116g)

Drop of almond or vanilla essence

116g (50/50 self-raising flour and ground almonds)

Jam or marmalade (optional)

 

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or use paper cases – or smaller twists of baking paper on a baking sheet.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one and incorporate, as well as the essence. Sift in the dry ingredients and fold in to combine.

Spoon the batter into the cases, adding a tiny blob of jam or marmalade to the middle of each, if you like.

Bake for 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the cake, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Serve warm from the oven if possible, with a fruit compote such as rhubarb.