Almond cake with chocolate ganache and round and round the roundabout

I find roundabouts inspirational and can always find a roundabout-related reason to rant or reminisce. If I come across a particularly interesting one, I might keep driving around it until my slightly neurodivergent roundabout curiosity is satisfied. Conversely, driving around a plain, concrete slab of a roundabout sets off an inner Tourette’s-style dialogue about all the lost opportunities. Some roundabouts, such as Hyde Park Corner in London or l’Étoile in Paris, produce an adrenaline rush, as you need to be assertive and adopt just the right degree of aggression to drive out alive.

We left the car in the long-term car park at Toulouse Airport for a week during a recent trip to Malta. I put the ticket in a Very Safe Place before rushing to catch our flight. A week later, arriving back in Toulouse quite late and after various delays, we eventually located the car and attempted to exit the car park.

We couldn’t understand why the barrier wasn’t recognising our number plate, and I may have resorted to a few choice swear words. We even enlisted the help of a couple who happened to be nearby, and eventually, after about 45 minutes, managed to get hold of an employee via the intercom. Everyone kept repeating, ‘you can’t get out of the car park without your ticket’, while Luc had to keep explaining that we didn’t have one.

Over half an hour into the saga, a light finally went on in my brain. Of course we had a ticket! It was safely stowed in the Very Safe Place. To his credit, Luc refrained from calling me unrepeatable names!

In an attempt to diffuse the tension, I typed ‘home’ into Waze for our journey back. As luck would have it, we had trouble picking up a 5G signal, which meant that we simply kept driving round and round and round the roundabout at the car park exit, while the kind people who had tried to help Luc solve the mystery of our inability to leave looked on, open-mouthed and shaking their heads in bewilderment.

Recipe for almond cake with chocolate ganache (serves 8)

Cake:

• 125g wholemeal flour
• 75g almond flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 200g butter
• 150g cane sugar
• 4 large organic eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
• 1 tablespoon rum
• Raspberry jam
• Marzipan

Ganache:

• 150g dark cooking chocolate
• 150ml cream

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together and set aside. Cut the butter into cubes and leave to soften at room temperature for a few minutes. Using an electric mixer, beat for about 10 minutes until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Finally, add the rum and vanilla essence, then gently fold in the flour mixture.

Transfer the mixture to a buttered loaf tin, place in the oven bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove the cake from the tin and leave to cool.

Once cool, cut the cake in half horizontally. Spread a thin layer of marzipan and a generous layer of raspberry jam over the bottom half, then place the top half back on.

To make the chocolate ganache, cut the chocolate into very small pieces – the smaller, the better – and place in a bowl. Pour the cream into a saucepan and heat until just before boiling. Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate. Whisk until smooth and glossy. Leave to cool until thick enough to spread evenly over the cake.