If you’re sat at your desk like us, dreaming of cake, then take a look at these and maybe stop by the supermarket for some ingredients on the way home.

Chef Eric Lanlard shows us step by step how to make these beautiful gluten free lemon and cardamom mini cakes. 

Nielsen-Massey’s Warm “petit” Lemon & Cardamom  Cake with Vanilla Bean Syrup
by Eric Lanlard

INGREDIENTS

40g gluten free plain flour, sifted

¼ tsp baking powder

120g icing sugar, sifted, plus extra for dusting

45g ground almonds

4 medium free-range eggs, whites only

65g unsalted butter

2 tsp Nielsen-Massey Lemon Extract

2 tsp baking powder

2tsp ground cardamom

For the vanilla syrup:

2 lemons

1tsp Nielsen-Massey Lemon Extract

50g golden caster sugar

2tbp water

2tsp Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Bean Paste

To decorate:

12 – 24 raspberries, cut in half and gold leaf

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Butter and line the bottom of 12 mini loaf tins.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and add the icing sugar and ground almonds, stir to mix.  Add the egg whites and whisk everything thoroughly for one minute with a wire whisk. To create a batter.

In a small saucepan melt the butter until the solids just start to brown, then pour the butter into the batter mix through a tea strainer.  Add the cardamom and Nielsen-Massey Lemon Extract and mix well.

Leave the mixture to rest for 5 – 10 minutes.

Transfer the mixture to a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle.  Pipe into your mini loaf tins, filling them three-quarters full.  Bake for 10 – 15 minutes, until just golden-brown.

To make the syrup place in a saucepan the juice of 2 lemons with all the other ingredients and take to the boil for 2 minutes before setting to one side.

Remove your mini loaves from the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin and then turn the mini cake on a cooling rack over a plate and drench with the warm syrup.   

Decorate with raspberries, a dash of gold leaf and a sprinkling of icing sugar.

Go to bakingmad.com for more recipes from Eric Lanlard and Neilsen-Massey or search @NielsenMasseyUK on Twitter or Pinterest.