Welcome to Cook-ING, a biweekly series where writer Ingrid Doubleday (Ingrid, ING, get it?) shares recipe ideas and reviews, meal prepping tips, dinner party plans, and other fun cooking related tidbits, stories, and snacks.

This week, we are back to bak-ING, this time with a blackberry almond cake topped with a tart raspberry compote. As we approach finals, the end of the semester, and the end of college for me, I’ve reached the point where I need a little treat or reward for working on my thesis and turning in assignments. One of my favorite ways to motivate myself is with a coffee and a sweet snack. So, I thought rather than spend $10 every day on a cappuccino and a cookie, why not bake something yummy at home that I can snack on for days and that will be cheaper in the long run. 

This almond cake with blackberries is a perfect snacking cake — a cake that’s not too sweet, not too rich, not too decadent. It doesn’t really feel like eating a rich birthday cake. Instead, it’s light and airy, easy to eat on the run, and the fruit adds a bright freshness. In other words, it’s the perfect sweet snack, delicious with your mid-morning, mid-afternoon, or midnight coffee break.

This concept of snacking cakes fits quite well into the idea of the cookbook that this recipe is from — “Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break” by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall. The concept of fika essentially encompasses the moment you take a break from your day with a cup of coffee (or tea) and a baked good. The word fika translates to coffee, or to drink coffee, but it’s come to embody a whole culture of pausing your day to enjoy a coffee and a snack — anytime, anywhere, and with anyone. 

I love the idea of fika. I’m a firm believer in taking a break from whatever I’m doing to pause, give my brain a rest, and savor a snack and a coffee. This also relates to why I love cooking and baking so much as well. In a similar way, setting aside time to cook (for myself, for friends, for the people I love) also gives me time to rest my school or work brain and let my creativity come out in a different way.

In the chaos of the end of the semester, I really recommend taking some fika breaks. Whether you make your own almond cake with this recipe, bake something else that brings you joy, or buy a baked good and a coffee at the cafe down the street, slow down for a moment and take the time to give your brain a break.

In Swedish, this recipe is called “mandelkaka med björnbär.” I picked it because I’ve been craving early summer fruits. It’s super quick and easy to make, which is always an added bonus when we are in a time crunch at the end of the semester.

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter + a little extra for the pan
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 cup flour
• About 1 cup (or 4-5 ounces) fresh blackberries

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 400˚F. Using a bit of the extra butter, grease a 9 inch round baking pan. Then dust the pan with flour, making sure to coat the bottom and sides well. This will prevent the cake from sticking to the pan.
2. Melt the 6 tablespoons of butter either in the microwave or in a saucepan on the stove over low heat. Once melted, let cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and almond extract until light and frothy. The eggs are working as the rising agent in this cake (we aren’t using any baking powder or soda), so it’s really important to get the batter super light and airy in order to make the cake rise in the oven. The mixture should be a very pale, light yellow color and be frothy and bubbly. If you are whisking by hand, mix until you can’t anymore (and then whisk a little more), and if you’re using an electric mixer, go for a solid 3-4 minutes. At this stage, it’s hard to overmix the batter.
4. Once the batter looks light and frothy, slowly pour in the cooled, melted butter, whisking as you go. It’s important that the butter is no longer hot when you do this because, if it is, it can cook the eggs.
5. Sift in the flour and gently mix together until the batter is smooth and there are no more clumps. My tip for measuring flour when baking is to scoop the flour into the measuring cup with a spoon. This ensures that you aren’t adding extra flour, which can happen if it’s packed into the measuring cup.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan, spreading it out evenly. Scatter the blackberries across the top. You don’t need to press them into the batter; their weight will make them sink during baking.
7. Bake the cake for 20-30 minutes, until golden on top and a toothpick, knife, or cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool.
8. Slice and serve up!

You can eat the cake as is (it’s delish), but I’d also recommend dusting the top with some powdered sugar and topping it with a fruit compote (like the raspberry recipe below) or with whipped cream. It’s also good with a sprinkling of cinnamon on top. You can omit the blackberries from the cake entirely if the combination with the fruit doesn’t sound appealing, or substitute them with any other berry or fruit — raspberries, blueberries, or even sliced or halved plums. The almond cake base is great to build on with whatever fruit is in season.

And, of course, enjoy it with a coffee! 🙂

Ingredients for raspberry compote:

• About 12 ounces of raspberries (one of the big containers)
• Half a lemon
• A little less than ¼ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon water

Instructions:

1. Rinse raspberries and add them to a pot.
2. Add in the sugar, water, and juice from the half lemon (making sure not to get any seeds).
3. Cook over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves, the fruit begins to break down, and the liquid cooks out.
4. Remove from heat, let cool, and store in a jar.

It can be difficult to judge when compotes, jams, or sauces like these are done because while they are hot, they are quite liquidy. However, as they cool, they firm up a lot. For this one, I just cooked it as long as the cake was in the oven. If you want a thinner sauce, I would start with more liquid (2-3 tablespoons of water). If you want a firmer compote, I would follow this recipe but cook for longer until the sauce looks like the consistency you want.

I really wanted a tart, sour compote to go with the sweeter almond cake, which is why I chose raspberries and added lemon. You can use any sort of berry here (blackberry, strawberry, etc.), and you can always add more sugar as you cook the sauce if you want a sweeter compote. You can also add a dash of vanilla extract to smooth out and sweeten the flavor profile without actually adding more sugar. Compotes like these are super easy to make and play around with depending on your ingredients and what you want to use it for. I love having leftover compote to put on toast or add to my oatmeal or yogurt in the morning for some fruity, sour brightness.

I hope this recipe inspires you to use the idea of fika to take an intentional break from your finals and study sessions. Let your brain rest, meet up with a friend, or have a solo moment, and enjoy a yummy baked good and a coffee. I think it’s incredibly important to take these little moments of rest in order to produce our best work. Plus, a sweet treat always makes for good homework motivation.