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Cake of the month

For us here at BikeShak (and many, many others), bikes and cakes are inexplicably linked.  Whether it’s accompanied with tea from a bone china cup on a mid-ride cafe stop, or with a flask of coffee huddled around the boot of the car at the end of a night-time mountain bike ride, cake & bikes are never far apart.  We really like cake.  We really like riding bikes too.  Thankfully the two go hand in hand: we ride lots, which means we can eat lots of cake – guilt free.

As often as possible we will be sharing a receipe that we’ve tried out on your behalf.  They’ll all be pretty quick & simple to make, so no one need ever be without their hard earned post-ride cake. First up, it’s a mincemeat and marzipan loaf.  Half a jar of mincemeat and a lump of marzipan left over after Christmas reminded us of this belter…

1. First things first, preheat your fan oven to 160˚ and line the bottom of a 1kg loaf tin.
2. Sift 200g of self riasing flour into a bowl, add in 100g of butter (cut into pieces) and rub into crumbs.
3. Once you’ve got it into fine crubs, stir in 85g of light muscovado sugar and 85g of marzipan (cut into little cubes).
4. In a second bowl whisk up 2 free-range eggs, then stir in 300g of mincemeat.
5. Add the egg/mincemeat goo to the flour mixture & stir until you get a smooth paste.  Tip into the loaf tin, smooth it over, then sprinkle with a few flaked almonds & bung it in the oven for about an hour.
6. After an hour or so (when a skewer inserted comes out clean), turn it out onto a cooling rack and dust with icing sugar.
7. Eat