Ingredients
- Cake:
- 50 g plain flour
- 200 g almond meal
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs
- 170 g sugar
- 250 g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into large chunks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest of 4 kaffir limes
- To make the syrup :
- 120 g sugar
- 125 g lime juice
- 250 g water
- kaffir lime leaves (as much or as little as you want, depending on how strong you wish the flavour to be. I used about 20 small leaves, branch and all)
Preparation
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 160′C. Butter and line a 20cm square cake tin.
Combine the flour, almond meal, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
In a food processor, add the eggs and sugar and process for about 1 minute. Add the butter and process again to combine, then add the vanilla extract and lime zest, followed by the flour mixture. Pulse until the batter is just combined, stopping every now and then to scrape down the sides with a spatula.
Tip the batter into the prepared tin, smoothing it out evenly. Bake for about 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Cool the cake in the tin before gently brushing the warm prepared syrup over the cake. You will only need 1/3 of the syrup made. The rest can be served alongside slices of the cake. Allow the cake to cool completely before slicing.
[Note: Remove the zest from the limes with a very fine grater like a Microplane, to avoid zesting any of the extra bitter white pith. If you don't have kaffir limes, substitute with normal limes or lemon]
To make the syrup:
Put the sugar, lime juice, lime leaves and water into a pot. Bring to boil, stirring. Once boiled, turn the heat down to a simmer and allow to reduce for 10 minutes or until it looks more syrupy.