I’ve made this Rosemary Blackberry Layer Cake on Saturday to celebrate Imbolc and it’s such lovely cake that I’ve decided to share the recipe with you.
Imbolc is traditionally celebrated on the 1st of February halfway between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox marking the beginning of Spring and return of light. Imbolc is associated with Goddess Brigid, Goddess of healing, poetry and crafts who is celebrated during this time. Some of the many plants that are sacred to Brigid are rosemary and blackberry that have inspired this cake.
I’ve used my trusted gluten-free vegan sponge cake recipe that I’ve adapted from my Vegan Apple Cake. It’s lovely and moist and the addition of fresh rosemary creates such delicate interesting flavour. The cake is filled with quick blackberry chia jam and frosted with whipped coconut frosting. You could omit the chia seeds here and just make thicker blackberry compote, it was a last-minute decision.
It’s a small 6″ two-layer cake, perfect for a little celebration. Rosemary and blackberry are truly delightful together and I am inspired to create more recipes with these two wonderful healing plants. Hope you enjoy it :)
Rosemary Blackberry Layer Cake (vegan & gluten-free)
Ingredients
- 100g ground almonds (1 cup)
- 70g brown rice flour (1/2 cup)
- 35g buckwheat flour (1/4 cup)
- 30g arrowroot (1/4 cup)
- 1tsp baking powder
- 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
- pinch sea salt
- 100g coconut sugar (3/4 cup)
- 1tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
- 1/2 lemon, zest
- 2tbsp ground flaxseed + 6tbsp water
- 80ml apple sauce (1/3 cup)
- 80ml olive oil (1/3 cup)
- 60ml almond milk or as needed (1/4 cup)
- 2tsp lemon juice
Blackberry chia jam:
- 200g frozen blackberries (2 cups)
- squeeze of lemon juice
- 1tbsp coconut sugar
- 1/4tsp cinnamon
- 1/4tsp cardamom
- 1tbsp chia seeds
To assemble:
- whipped coconut cream
- blackberries
- rosemary sprigs
- dried cornflowers
Instructions
- Mix 2tbsp ground flaxseed with 6tbsp water and set aside to thicken.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350F)
- Grease and line the base and dust the sides of two 6" round cake baking tins.
- In a large bowl whisk together ground almonds, brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, arrowroot, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Stir in sugar, rosemary and lemon zest and set aside.
- In a small bowl whisk together gelled flax eggs, apple sauce, olive oil, almond milk and lemon juice.
- Add the wet mix to the dry mix and mix until well combined. You should have loose pourable muffin consistency. Spoon the mixture evenly into your prepared tins and level out the surface. Bake for about 30 min or until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Remove from the oven once ready and leave to cool down for 20 min before removing from the tins.
- To make the blackberry chia jam place blackberries, lemon juice, coconut sugar, cinnamon and cardamom into a small pot and gently heat for about 10 minutes until blackberries are soft and mushy. Take off the heat and roughly mash them with a fork. Stir in chia seeds and leave to cool down for a bit before transferring into a fridge to set.
- Once the cakes are completely cool, you can frost the cake. Place the bottom layer onto a cake stand and spread generously with some whipped coconut frosting followed by generous amount of blackberry jam. Top with the second cake layer and frost the top and the sides of the cake.
- Decorate with few blackberries, rosemary sprigs and dried cornflowers.
- Enjoy!
Notes
You could omit the chia seeds and just make thicker blackberry compote if you prefer.
*please note the flowers are only used to enhance the photos
Hello there, I am unfortunately on a low sugar diet, however I really wanted to bake one of your cakes for my birthday as a very special treat (I have been waiting for months for this moment). So as you can imagine I want this to be really worth it, so my question to you would be, which of your white cakes would you recommend the most as the absolute birthday cake? I was going to make the one with oat flour and coconut but this looks promising as well. Any thoughts please?
Hi Artemis, I’m honoured that you’d love to bake one of my cakes for your birthday :) This one is lovely and simple, I’ve made a different version of this cake many times and you can adapt it with spices to your liking. You can happily leave out the rosemary too. In the jam, you could use other berries too. And the frosting I’ve used is just whipped coconut cream.
Another one that I make over and over is the Vegan Apple Cake (very similar) and one that is also nice is the Raspberry Matcha Celebration Cake.
Hope one of these will inspire you & you enjoy the cake. Have a wonderful Birthday celebration!
The Raspberry Matcha one looks absolutely glorious. From now on I will live for that moment???? thank you for your reply and for your talent. I tweaked (just a bit) one of your recipes for New Year’s Eve and made a Greek Vasilopita and everybody loved it. No one even touched the store bought!
That’s wonderful, I’m so happy you love this one! My friend made it not long ago for her birthday and it was amazing, I forgot how good it tastes. I hope you love it! And you’re very welcome :)
Hello! Your cakes all look beautiful and delicious. I’d like to try some of them but would prefer to make my own flours from some of my bulk goods. I have many pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pecans, oats, and brown rice. I do not own a high speed blender though. Would you suggest blending these into flour consistency straightaway, or first making nut milk, dehydrating the pulp, and blending further? Would any of the above flours be interchangeable with some of the flours you tend to list? Thank you for any guidance :)
Hi Kt. Yes, you can make your own flours at home from any grains, nuts and seeds. If you normally make your own plant-based milk than it’s great to use the pulp to make flour so you don’t waste it but you don’t have to. A high-speed blender is the fastest but you can also use food processor or grinder. You can replace any of the nuts with seeds in my recipes and vice versa. Just note sunflower seeds tend to turn baked goods green the next day so I tend to use sunflower seed flour in chocolate recipes. Oat, brown rice and ground nuts or seeds make a nice gluten-free mix. You can also add little starch. Hope this helps.
Yes, it does! I appreciate your advice and this is a nice starting point to begin experimenting. I’ll have to try out some different combos. Best wishes to you
Best wishes to you too! Have fun!
Hello! Love the look of this cake. Two questions, do you think it would work to substitute arrowroot flour with tapioca? And I suppose I can use coconut milk instead of almond milk? Thanks :-)
Hi Martha, yes, you can. Arrowroot or tapioca flour/starch is perfect and you can use any light plant-based milk here. Hope you like it :)
How could I replace the buckwheat? I love it but my family hates it :(. Also, if I wanted to make this in two 8” tins would I need to increase the quantity of ingredients (I’d use an online recipe calculator) or could I use the same quantities and just get thinner sponges?
Hi Anna, you can replace the buckwheat flour with another gluten-free flour like sorghum or oat flour. Or just increase the brown rice flour. To make it in two 8″ tins just double the recipe. Hope you enjoy the cake :)
Do you think there would be any difference in the cake (other than taste) when using different flours?
Hi Anna, it depends which flours you will use. But there shouldn’t be much difference, some may be more liquid absorbing than others and you just need to adjust the milk.