Our much loved combined oven, grill and microwave packed up the other day, which left us with limited ways of making food until we decided on a new oven combi, purchased it and had it delivered. With a craving for cake making and only a hob and slow cooker available, I did a quick search online to find out if it was possible to make cakes in the slow cooker. To my surprise I found that many people have done it with great results. So with a surplus of almonds and a lemon to hand, I thought I’d try making our favourite Lemon and Almond Cookies recipe, but in the slow cooker. This gave birth to the rather wonderful Slow Cooker Lemon and Almond Cookie Cake.
Tips for slow cooker cake making
It is actually not that difficult to make a cake in the slow cooker, you have to be aware that whatever you make will be ‘all-in-one’ and will need slicing up after if you want individual cakes.
It is advisable to grease the slow cooker bowl with butter/margarine and also line it with grease proof paper which enables easy removal of the contents once it is cooked. You can also use a giant cup cake case if it suits the size of your crock pot.
The best tip I picked up from other slow cooker cake makers is to place a tea towel underneath the lid of the slow cooker which soaks up all the condensation and stops it from dripping down onto the cake. We really don’t want a soggy cake.
Ingredients
This recipe uses exactly the same ingredients and method as for the original Lemon and Almond Cookies Recipe.
- 100g soft butter or margarine
- 100g castor sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 185g plain flour (a little more may be needed)
- Half a teaspoon baking powder
- zest and juice of one lemon
- a large handful of almonds or as many as you have available, crushed.
Method
- Grease the inside of the slow cooker pot, and then line with grease proof paper.
- With an electric mixer, cream together the sugar, butter and lemon zest until light and fluffy.
- Crush the almonds in a blender or manually with a plastic bag and rolling pin until they are ‘chocolate chip’ size pieces.
- Add the egg and the vanilla essence to the butter mixture and beat until thick and creamy.
- Pour in the lemon juice and add two tablespoons of flour on top and then mix well.
- Slowly add the rest of the flour, whilst still mixing, along with the baking powder and the crushed almonds. The cookie dough should be thick and sticky so that it stands in peaks when the spatula is lifted from the mixture and it is tough to mix. Add more flour if it is not thick enough, it will depend on the size of the lemon and the amount of juice added.
- Tip the mixture into the slow cooker on top of the grease proof paper and level it out. Put the tea towel over the top and then put the lid on. Cook on high for approximately two to two and a half hours. This will depend on your slow cooker, so check regularly. The cookie cake is done when the top is slightly golden in colour and knife comes out clean when inserted into the mixture. My mistake was to cook the cake on the auto setting on my slow cooker and it took about four hours or more to cook. If I had put it on high it would have cooked in half that time.
- Once cooked through, pull the cake out of the slow cooker using the grease proof paper and place on a rack to cool.
- Once cooled, peel back the paper and slice into squares as required.
Slow cooker cakes are a great way to make a cake if you only have time to mix up and not enough time to wait to take it out of the oven. A slow cooker cake gives you a couple of hours to nip down the shops, or clean the house while you wait. Then you can return to the lovely aroma of baking and a perfectly cooked cake for afternoon tea!
Best Selling Slow Cookers
If you’ve not invested in a slow cooker yet then we suggest you do – right now! Morphy Richards are the most popular providers of slow cookers and here are three of their best selling models available in the UK at the moment.
