A rustic autumn cake with cooked hawthorn berry pulp, apple, warm spice and walnuts — with careful seed removal for a safer wild-food recipe.
Hawthorn berries have a dry, gently tart flavour that sits somewhere between apple and rosehip. On their own they contain very little juicy flesh, so they work beautifully when cooked with apple and pressed into a smooth pulp. This cake keeps the flavour rustic and autumnal while avoiding one important mistake: the hard hawthorn seeds are removed rather than crushed or baked into the cake.
Recipe card
How to Make It
Ingredients
- 250 g prepared hawthorn-and-apple pulp (see step 1)
- 160 g plain flour
- 80 g ground almonds
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves or allspice
- Pinch of salt
- 2 eggs
- 120 g light brown sugar or 100 g sugar + 1 tbsp honey
- 100 g melted butter or neutral oil
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 60 g chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
Method
- 1Prepare the fruit: simmer cleaned hawthorn berries with chopped apple and a splash of water until soft. Press through a fine sieve or food mill so the hawthorn seeds are completely removed. Measure 250 g pulp.
- 2Heat oven to 175°C fan / 190°C conventional. Line a 20 cm round tin.
- 3Whisk flour, ground almonds, baking powder, spices and salt.
- 4In another bowl whisk eggs, sugar, melted butter, vanilla and lemon zest. Stir in the fruit pulp.
- 5Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, then add nuts if using.
- 6Bake 35–45 minutes, until a skewer comes out without wet batter. Cool before slicing.
Allergen information
Contains eggs, dairy (butter), tree nuts (almonds, walnuts) and gluten unless substituted.
Ika's Realm notes
- Serve with plain yoghurt, crème fraîche or a light dusting of icing sugar. Hawthorn species must be identified correctly and harvested from clean, unsprayed sites. Remove the seeds; RHS notes that hawthorn seeds contain toxins and should be removed if the fruit is eaten.
Key takeaways
- Cook the berries with apple and sieve them — the hard seeds are removed, never crushed.
- Hawthorn tastes between apple and rosehip; it needs apple for moisture.
- Identify the plant correctly and pick from clean, unsprayed sites.
Further reading
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