A simple marzipan and gooseberry cake recipe

The gooseberry season has begun and here's one of my favourite cakes for using up those gooseberries (you'll find more delicious ways of using gooseberries at the end of this post). It's a simple sponge cake, made special by the generous amount of sour gooseberries and tiny chewy bits of cooked marzipan.

You'll need a small sheet pan for this cake, about 25x35 cm (10 inch x 14 inch) in size.

Trivia: Did you know that the French call gooseberries the "mackerel berries" (groseille a macqueraux)? Neither did I...

Marzipan and gooseberry cake 
(Tikri-martsipanikook)
Serves about 20

4 large free-range eggs
250 g caster sugar (about 300 ml)
150-200 g marzipan
250 g all-purpose/plain flour (about 400 ml)
a pinch of salt

Topping:
500 ml gooseberries, rinsed, topped and tailed (2 cups)
50 g cold butter (about 2 Tbsp)
demerara brown sugar or pearl sugar

To serve:
icing sugar/confectioner's sugar
vanilla custard/creme anglaise (optional)

 

Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale, thick and fluffy.
Grate the marzipan coarsely (you can put the marzipan into freezer for half an hour to make grating easier), or simply cut or crumble into small chunks. Fold into the egg and sugar mixture.
Fold in the flour and salt, stir gently until combined.
Line a Swiss roll tin (ca 25x35 cm) with a parchment paper or butter generously and dust with flour or semolina.
Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin. Scatter the gooseberries on top, then sprinkle with sugar and dot with small pieces of butter (feel free to use your grater here again).
That's how it will look:

 

Bake in a pre-heated 200C/390 F oven for about 35-45 minutes, until the cake is golden brown.

Let cool a little, then cut into squares and dust generously with an icing sugar.

Other gooseberry recipes:
Gooseberry tart with a sweetened condensed milk topping
Gooseberry fruit soup aka gooseberry kissel
Carrot and gooseberry jam
Gooseberry chutney
Red gooseberry sorbet
Coconut gooseberry clafoutis @ The Kitchn