Chocaroon cake for Jude

My friend Jude has a birthday this weekend so today I made a chocaroon cake for her.

Here it is in its un-baked state - I was a bit nervous when I pulled it out of the oven and forgot to take a picture.

The recipe came from one of my favourite food writers, Alexa Johnston. When I read her description of the cake I really wanted to make it. Here's what she said - taken from A Second Helping: More from Ladies, a Plate:

One of my favourite community cookbooks, simply called Our Recipe Book, was published in December 1967 by the Karitane Public Hall Committee. It has an interesting selection of recipes and as soon as I saw this one with its promising name and its baked-in filling and topping I knew I had to try it. At the end of the recipe Mrs L Stewart, who contributed it to the book, noted: 'This recipe won $10 in a recipe contest.' More than 40 years ago $10 was a much more significant amount than it seems today, and the cake is so pretty and delicious it certainly deserved its prize.'

Happy birthday to Jude.

And thank you to Steph W for the strawberry jam that was required to enable the topping to stick to the cake.