Acorn Cake

So, a disclaimer up front; this recipe is a blend of flour, using just enough acorn flour to offer a nutty, mildly bitter flavour and amazing moist texture, whilst also being restrained with the amount to make sure there’s plenty for other recipes. There’s no quick way to process acorns after all.

Topped with a cream cheese frosting for a subtly acidic finish, this cake is wholesome, humble but sophisticated. Share it with your friends and family, along with your story behind foraging the acorns yourself. What’s more special than sharing something you made yourself, using ingredients you can’t buy in a supermarket? I shared most of this cake with my colleagues and the general review was very positive, with Stacey (self-proclaimed cake connoisseur going as far to say it was the best cake she’d ever eaten). She may have been angling for more free cake in the future though…

Click here to find out how to make acorn flour.

Recipe - Makes a 25-30cm Round Cake

Sponge ingredients

• 200g Raw cane sugar

• 115g Butter, softened

• 310g Plain flour (white, spelt, wholemeal, or heritage)

• 3tbsp Acorn flour

• 240g Buttermilk (or split milk with 1tsp white vinegar)

• 2 Eggs

• 1 Beetroot, juice

• 1tsp Baking powder

• 1tsp Bicarbonate of soda

• 1tsp Salt

Frosting ingredients

• 110g Butter, softened

• 230g Cream cheese

• 80g Icing sugar

• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

Step 1.

Preheat the oven at 180C (350f) and rest the butter at room temperature for 30 minutes. Whilst waiting, grate the beetroot into a small bowl and mix with a pinch of salt. Set it aside for later and measure out the flour, acorn flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.

Note: you can use any combination of plain flour, from white to heritage. My suggestion is to go all in on a heritage flour and make this cake something truly special but feel free to follow your preferences.

Step 2.

Once the butter is soft enough to whisk, cream it and the sugar together with a spoon or paddle attachment on a kitchenaid. Once the sugar no longer feels gritty and the butter is pale, crack one egg in and continue to beat. Then repeat with the second egg. (If you’re curious to know why I opted to use eggs in this recipe please read the note at the foot of this page).

Step 3.

When both eggs are combined with the creamed butter, add half the flour blend and whisk lightly until combined. Don’t over whisk as this will make the cake chewy and hard. Add half the buttermilk (or split regular milk with 1 tsp of white or cider vinegar) and continue to whisk. Then add the remaining half of the flour and repeat for the final amount of buttermilk. This way we save the batter from splitting.

Step 4.

Finally, squeeze as much beetroot juice as possible into the batter and fold it in. The final cake won’t look purple but will have a subtle earthiness that compliments the acorn. (But feel free to skip this stage if you’d rather not have purple hands forever).

Grease a 20cm deep cake tin with butter and pour all the batter in. Pop it in the oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour.

Step 5.

Do the knife test to check the cakes cooked through properly, then let it rest for 20 minutes on a cooling rack before sliding it from the tin. 20 minutes is the sweet spot for most cakes as it gives the delicate sponge time to cool and firm up whilst not letting it firm enough to bond to the tin.

As the cake cools, whisk the icing ingredients together, sieving the icing sugar into the fats to remove lumps. If the frosting is too loose to work with then store it in the fridge for 15 minutes. When the cake is completely cooled, cut it widthways through the middle with a large bread knife. Using a spoon or palette knife, spread the frosting over the middle of the cake and layer up the sponge on top, then cover the rest of the cake in a rustic style that says ‘homemade and proud!’

Store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.

*For this recipe I wanted to explore acorn flour as an ingredient our ancestors will have used. This meant pairing it with other ingredients that would have been widely available too. Eggs, buttermilk, wheat, even bicarb (as a modern answer to pearl ash) have all been around for as long as we’ve been figuring out baked carby sweet treats. If you wish to substitute the eggs with flax egg, no-egg or mashed banana then be my guest. I’m keen to know how well they work too.