We British are renowned for our sweet cakes – but it took a French cook to create some savoury alternatives
From Mary Berry and Delia Smith to the creative and exotic creations of the Great British Bake Off, we British have a lifelong love affair with cakes. The BV’s own Heather Brown regularly provides inspiration with her always-reliable and easy-to-follow recipes for beautiful and delicious cakes, buns and other bakes.
We are also really good at pies, tarts and cheesecakes – savoury and sweet. And we do make carrot cake, courgette cake or beetroot brownies … but these are all sweet. What we don’t have is a tradition of savoury cakes.
Last year, at a buffet lunch given by a friend who is a brilliant cook, we were introduced to savoury cakes and instantly fell in love. Light, delicious and very attractive, they are full of colourful vegetables like peppers, tomatoes and courgettes. Our friend loaned us a book, Les Cakes de Sophie*, by French baker and cookery writer Sophie Dudemaine, from where she had selected her recipes. I have been experimenting with them ever since.
Savoury cakes are quick, easy to make, most cook in less than 40 minutes and they are fairly inexpensive in terms of ingredients.
You can eat them hot and fresh from the oven, perhaps with a bright chilli, tomato and herb salsa or a favourite sauce. But they are just as good at room temperature, with a salad.
They are fine for vegetarians, but less so for vegans, as they do depend on fresh eggs and a selection of good cheeses (however, with a bit of trial and error and a good vegan cheese substitute, you probably could make a satisfactory vegan version).
Our current favourite is a date, feta and sun-dried tomato cake – it looks pretty and it tastes delicious. It’s great with a peppery green salad, and also good as a quick lunchtime snack or sliced to have in the car on a long drive.
This flexible use is what you might expect – most traditional English cakes (not the fancy, iced and decorated ones) are portable and versatile.
But with their colourful ingredients – some can even be layered like a terrine – the savoury cakes are also an appealing feature on a party table.
Anglo-Saxon cake
Over more than 20 years, Sophie Dudemaine has made her name as a successful cookbook author, cookery teacher, baker and pioneer of the so-called “easy cooking” trend in France. She ran a cookery school, restaurant and bed and breakfast in Normandy. She is a prolific writer and many of her books focus on cakes both sweet and savoury – she has acknowledged that some of her inspiration derives from the Anglo-Saxon style of cakes.
Most of the savoury cake recipes follow a simple formula of flour, eggs, sunflower oil, warmed semi-skimmed milk and gruyere cheese, with other cheeses, herbs, vegetables, smoked salmon or prawns for the different cakes. Like most basic recipes, you can tweak and embroider the original combination to suit your tastes. The quantities are pretty flexible too.
You could also experiment using your own preferred basic sweet cake recipe – using, for example, a simple sponge mix of 100g butter, 2 or 3 eggs (depending on size) and 100g self-raising flour, but omitting the usual sugar. As with a basic sweet cake recipe, you can multiply the quantities to make a larger cake.
Cooking times may vary – check that your cake is cooked by inserting a skewer in the middle. The mixture is more like a batter than a typical sweet cake, so you may have to experiment with timings. But if the skewer comes out clean, the cake should be ready. If it’s not quite ready but is getting too brown, cover it with a piece of greaseproof paper or foil.
Above is the recipe for our courgette and cheese savoury cake, which starts with Sophie’s core mix of flour, eggs, oil and milk. You can vary this basic recipe with whatever takes your fancy – eg substitute stoned dates, cut in three or four pieces, for the courgette, and use as many as you want, remembering that dates are very sweet; replace the gouda/gruyere with roughly cut up feta, and use a few more tomatoes, but omit the parsley (you could use a few torn fresh basil leaves, if you have them).
*The cookbook is in French, but with the power of Google Translate at our fingertips this isn’t a problem!
Courgette, gouda and parsley savoury cake
Makes 8 to 10 slices
Set oven to 180ºF, Gas 4
Line a loaf tin or square tin (the size you would use for brownies) with greaseproof paper – there is no need to grease the tin.
- 150g self-raising flour
- 3 eggs
- 13ml warmed semi-skimmed milk
- 10ml sunflower oil
- 150g grated firm courgette (skin on)
- 150g grated gouda (or gruyere)
- 50-60g sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, very roughly chopped
- Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, roughly chopped
- Grated farmhouse Cheddar for topping
Gently mix the flour and eggs together until fully combined. Then stir in the warmed milk, thoroughly, and then the sunflower oil. At this stage it is a very loose batter. Grate the courgette and fold it in, grate the cheese and mix that in, and then stir in the chopped sun-dried tomatoes – fold them in gently – and finally the parsley.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and put in the oven. After about 15-20 minutes, check on its progress, and then sprinkle on a generous amount of finely grated Cheddar. The cake should be ready after a total of about 30 to 35 minutes, but timings depend on the shape of the baking tin – if it is a deep loaf tin it will take longer than a square brownie tin.
