Edd Kimber’s Olive Oil, Pistachio And Lemon Snack Cake

Introduction

Delight your afternoon tea guests with this joyous one-tin bake from The Great British Bake Off’s first ever champ, Edd Kimber. This simple pistachio cake is made in a food processor, so it takes just minutes to prepare, and the machine does all the heavy lifting for you. Serve it with a simple lemon and sugar glaze and sprinkle with a few roughly chopped pistachios and dried rose petals.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas mark 4. Lightly grease your 15x40cm baking tin and line with a strip of parchment paper that overhangs the long sides, securing it in place with metal clips.

2. Place the pistachios in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade attachment and pulse until they are finely ground. Tip into a large bowl along with the ground almonds, flour, baking powder and salt and mix together.

3. Put the sugar, eggs and lemon zest in the processor bowl and

Ingredients

(10 to 12 servings)

For the cake

• 200ml olive oil, plus extra for greasing

• 140g shelled pistachios, plus a few extra for decoration

• 65g ground almonds

• 65g gluten-free plain flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp fine sea salt

• 200g caster sugar

• 4 large eggs

• Zest of 1 lemon

For the glaze

• 200g icing sugar

• 2–3 tablespoons lemon juice

• Pinch of fine sea salt

• Chopped pistachios

• Dried rose petals process for about a minute. With the machine still running, slowly pour in the oil. Once fully combined, add the mixed dry ingredients and process for a second or two until evenly incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and spread evenly.

4. Bake for 35–40 minutes, or until lightly browned and the cake is set in the middle. Set aside to cool completely in the tin before using the parchment paper to lift it out.

5. For the glaze, mix the icing sugar, lemon juice and salt in a bowl until you have a thick but pourable paste. Pour it over the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides. Sprinkle with a few extra chopped pistachios and dried rose petals to decorate.

Top tips

• To make this cake vegan, swap out the eggs with this alternative: 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed and 3 tablespoons of water for every chicken’s egg

• If stored in a sealed container, the cake should keep for 3–4 days

There ain’t nothing like a Dame!

She’s cooking royalty: having risen through the royal honours ranks from OBE to CBE and then a DBE in 2020, Dame Prue Leith is best known to millions as one half of the judges who gets to crown the winner on TV’s jewel-in-the-crown baking show.

Prue, 83, has revealed that Bake Off is her “dream job”, adding: “It’s the nicest possible job, isn’t it? All we do is walk on, eat cake, say what we think, walk off.” Prue is delighted that This Morning’s Alison Hammond is joining the show. Working alongside Paul, Noel and Matt, she admits: “The problem for me is that I’m such a different generation from those three men that I never get their famous Bake Off innuendos. They’re like four-year-olds. So, I’m looking forward to having a woman around.”

A new batch of fans

It’s been a busy year or so for Dame Prue, who in September 2022 saw the relaunch of her updated autobiography, I’ll Try Anything Once It was originally published as Relish in 2017, when Prue had just joined the show. The riveting memoir tells the story of her incredible appetite for life, from her childhood in South Africa to becoming a Dame in the 2020 New Year’s Honours list.

Prue colours

When she moved to the UK, Prue become the first woman to open a high-end restaurant in London, Leith’s, which went on to gain a Michelin star. Alongside her continued involvement with the prestigious Leith’s School of Food and Wine, which she established in 1975, she keeps on top of her property and online business. Then there’s also been the launch of her vibrant and joyful tableware collection in collaboration with homeware brand BlissHome (available exclusively on www.uniqueandunity.co.uk).

Journey of discovery

It wasn’t until Prue left her native South Africa with a degree from Cape Town University to go to the Sorbonne in Paris, that she first discovered her love of food.

“I suddenly realised it was something I could do.” Clearly not a skill she’s learnt from her mother Peggy. Says Prue: “She was the worst cook in the world. But my very first book, Leith’s All-Party Cookbook, had the dedication, ‘For my mother, who can’t cook for toffee, but gave marvellous parties anyway.’ I wanted to make the point that food isn’t the only thing that goes into a party –your friends have not come to judge you.”

No stranger to mixing with members of the royal family, Dame Prue recently joined the Duke of Edinburgh, along with faith leaders, at Westminster Abbey, for a special Coronation Big Lunch – where the Duke ruled out a ‘bake off’, as he brought along a coronation quiche, baked by Buckingham Palace staff. The coronation quiche – the recipe chosen by the King and Queen – was given Dame Prue’s stamp of approval, praising the bake as “absolutely delicious”.

On a hot day in Paris, the Eiffel Tower grows taller. The tower is constructed from iron and when this is warmed it expands, causing the structure to grow by up to 17 cm.

What’s worse than a worm in your apple? Half a worm.

What do insects learn at school?

Mothmatics

Why was the centipede dropped from the insect football team? He took too long to put his boots on!

SEA BALL BOAT

KITE

SAND

BEACH

GAMES

WAVES

PICNIC

PARASOL

ICECREAM

SUNCREAM

DECKCHAIR

ADELAIDE AUSSIE BEACHES BOOMERANG

BRISBANE CANBERRA CORAL SEA

DESERTS DINGO EMUS KANGAROO

KOALA MARSUPIALS OCEANS PERTH

RAINFORESTS SEAFOOD SHRIMP SYDNEY

TASMANIA VICTORIA WOMBAT

Across

1. Short play preceding the main performance (7-6)

7. Diplomat having less authority than an ambassador (5)

8. Small axe with a short handle (7)

9. Egyptian royal tomb (7)

10. Plain dough cake, often griddled (5)

11. John ___, English dramatist whose works include Look Back in Anger (7)

17. Minor parish official (5)

18. Mass of precious metal (7)

20. Territory occupied by a nation (7)

21. One of the two main branches of orthodox Islam (5)

22. Native of Freetown, for example (6,7)

Down

1. Causing a sensation as of things crawling on the skin (6)

2. Large streams (6)

3. Bottomless gulf or pit (5)

4. Skilled craftsman (7)

5. Educational institution (6)

6. Having decayed or disintegrated (6)

8. Large body of water in north-east Canada (6,3)

12. Knitted jumper (7)

13. Appliance that corrects dental irregularities (6)

14. Food that is discarded (as from a kitchen) (6)

15. Character created by A A Milne, ___ the Pooh (6)

16. Native of Mumbai, for example (6)

19. Long noosed rope used to catch animals (5)

Fill in the grid so that each row, column and 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through to 9 with no repetition.

Dolphins sleep with one eye open. Honey never spoils. The shortest war lasted 38 minutes. The world’s oldest known recipe is for beer. The average person blinks around 15-20 times per minute. The Sun is 4.6 billion years old.