Hedgerow cake (with a fancy-schmansy Extra Helping)

Wild plum, blackberry and cobnut cake; plus pickled mirabelles and seabass sashimi (told you it was fancy).

This week I venture out of the patch and into the hedgerows…

…around the village where I live in rural Oxfordshire, England. Thanks to Humphrey The Springer Spaniel Puppy (pictured), our walks are short but very ponderous, giving me plenty of time to look at what’s growing in the hedgerows (and Humf’ plenty of time to sniff every leaf. Literally. Every.)

And the wild harvest is abundant.

The blackberries are just picking and the wild cherry plums and mirabelles are so ripe they fall off the tree at the slightest gust. If you can prise them from the claws of territorial squirrels, there are cobnuts to be had too. All of these will work beautifully in the dense, nutty dessert cake below.

And, since mirabelles are virtually unbuyable in the UK, they must have a special mention. So this week’s Extra Helping for paid subscribers is a very sophisticated (but embarrassingly easy to make) recipe of Pickled Mirabelles and Seabass Sashimi and is especially for anyone who happens upon a mirabelle tree during their walk and squeals with delight like I do at the sight of egg-yolk yellow gobstoppers just waiting for you to love them.

Hedgerow Cake

This recipe is very flexible, which is just as well because you can never be totally sure what the hedgerow will have in stock. Any combination of damsons, mirabelles, blackberries, plums and nuts will work fine. Avoid sloes and elderberries which are just too sour. It’s quite a dense and moist cake, so better for desserts served with crème fraiche than for elevenses.

Serves 6-8

• 250g salted butter, room temperature

• 250g golden caster sugar

• 4 eggs, beaten

• 100g chopped hazelnuts

• 150g ground almonds

• 40g plain flour

• 200g foraged blackberries, mirabelles, plums and damsons, washed, stoned if applicable, and plums halved

• 50g cobnuts, shelled weight, roughly chopped (or blanched hazelnuts)

Line a 21cm loose-bottomed cake tin with baking paper and pre-heat the oven to 160C.

Beat the butter and sugar in a free-standing mixer for 10 minutes. It needs to be really light and fluffy so be patient.

Add the eggs gradually, beating well before adding the next. It’s not the end of the world if it curdles, but you can prevent this by adding a spoonful of the flour now if needed.

In a herb chopper or Nutri-bullet, whizz the chopped hazelnuts into a powder. Fold this into the mix, together with the ground almonds and flour.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 20 minutes.

Open the oven door and poke the fruit and nuts into the top of the cake. They’ll sink in a little, but that’s all to the good.

Bake gently for a further 50-60 minutes or until the cake is firm. Remove and leave to cool before serving.

Paid subscribers can scroll down for the fancy sashimi recipe and, as usual, printer-friendly PDF recipe cards.