Easy apple & almond cake - or what to do with a rogue can of apple compote

The scoutwives hate to waste food.

At the end of every camp we go through the left overs that have come back and divvy it up - what can be saved for the following year (or for other scout activities through the year) and perishable stuff that needs to get used up.

This year, when we got back from camp, we decided
 we had to do something with some tins

of apple compote that had come back from the Netherlands with us in 2011 from a jamboree we took the scouts to. The tins are very much still in date (good till 2016 no less), but somehow we've never got round to feeding the contents to the scouts. Having taken the tins on 2 camps since Holland, on our return from Derbyshire, we decided enough was enough, and each of us took possession of a tin.

Nigella has a recipe in Feast for a damp apple & almond cake, one of her fantastically easy, whizz it all up cakes, which has no butter, and no flour in it, so possibly a good one for those with gluten issues. The amount of ground almonds, eggs and sugar probably negates any benefit the lack of butter might otherwise have had for any one, so don't try and kid yourself otherwise.

It does have fruit in, though, so not all bad -  the puree of 3 tart eating apples. Bingo. I consulted Google and Lo! there is a website which gives an equivalent apples to puree quantity. But of course there is. 

It was American, so in cups, but I have cup measures, and all was well.

Of course, it didn't use up the whole tin of apple compote, but made a good inroad into it, and I gave the rest of it to the kids. They loved it.

The cake came with us as our contribution to a dinner party last night. I sifted some icing sugar over it and served it with some double cream which I whipped up with a couple of teaspoons of cointreau in it.

Apple & Almond Cake

11/3 (one and a third) cups apple puree/compote
1 tbsp lemon juice
375g ground almonds
250g caster sugar
8 large eggs
50g flaked almonds

Grease a 23cm springform cake tin with vegetable oil and line the base.

Whizz up all the ingredients apart from the flaked almonds, in a food processor.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake. Nigella says 45 mins but check after 35. Mine needed about 50 mins.