Use That Jam Foam!
Going back a couple of months I found this: “Jam foam is generally discarded and yet it contains valuable proteins besides sugar. I was eying the jam foam I put in the fridge from jam making the other day. I didn’t want to tax my ageing microwave with turning it back into jam, so I thought why not bake with it? That was day before yesterday and Jimre has been consuming said cake with relish ever since. I saw we still had three and a half squares left and thought I better take a photo of it.”
That’s where I left the jam foam cake back in July and then moved onto other things. It just dawned on me the other day I am 74, which means I have been 73 for two years. Well I found the folder with the photos and the ingredient list was on a slip of paper somewhere… I always jot down when I concoct something new in case I want to make it again.
One can use jam foam in a variety of cakes, loaves and muffins as long as it is treated part of the recipe; the amount of jam foam is part of the sugar and liquid content. In other words, if you use jam foam, use less sugar and less liquid the recipe calls for. Any fruit foam can be used, just make sure the chopped fruit pairs well with the flavour of the fruit foam. Here I paired apricot foam with dark cherries. It was a stretch, but for the top I used a tiny amount of raspberry coulis from the fridge… Well it worked! Now let’s see if my memory works.
Summer Fruitcake by Zsuzsa
Cake:
1/2 cup very soft sweet butter
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup apricot foam, divided
2 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup finely ground almonds
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
12 fresh dark cherries cut in half, stone discarded
1/2 cup full fat, 3.25% buttermilk
1/2 cup white chocolate chunks
Topping:
1/2 cup white chocolate chunks
1/2 cup raspberry coulis
• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Line a 9X13 inch cake pan with parchment paper.
• Add soft butter, oil, sugar, eggs, and half of the apricot foam to a beater bowl and beat it until fluffy.
• Place the cherries in a medium sized bowl and add 1/4 cup of flour.
• Tipping the bowl, coat the cherries with the flour.
• Scoop the flour coated cherries into a smaller bowl and set them aside.
• Add the remaining 2 cups of flour to the medium bowl.
• Add the almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and whisk the flour mixture with a balloon whisk to combine.
• In a measuring cup whisk the buttermilk with the remaining jam foam.
• Alternating, gradually add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture to the butter mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon to combine. [From here on don’t beat the batter]
• Gently fold the flour coated cherries and the white chocolate chunks into the batter.
• Transfer the batter into the prepared cake pan.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
• Test for doneness, remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.
• Next divide half a cup of white chocolate between two small bowls.
• Add 1/2 cup of raspberry coulis to one of the bowls.
• Melt the contents of the small bowls in the microwave starting at ~ 50 seconds.
• Stir them smooth.
• With a teaspoon drop thin strips of melted white chocolate alternating with the white chocolate and raspberry coulis mixtures over the cake top.
