Showing posts with label almond cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label almond cake. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Almond Cake



Just thought I would share a lovely little almond cake recipe that is divine with berries! More recipes to come . . . .


ALMOND CAKE
325°F 50 minutes

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ cups flour
2 tablespoons milk (or orange juice)
pinch of salt
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
(grated zest of one orange, optional)

Preheat oven. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add flour, alternating with milk, in two additions. Add salt. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in almond extract and orange zest, if using. Pour into prepared pan and bake approximately 50 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on a rack before removing from pan. Dust with powdered sugar to serve.

Variation: Orange almond cake. Use the orange juice instead of the milk, and add the orange zest with the almond extract.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Jam Tarts

Pastry crust filled with a tender almond cake and a dollop of apricot jam, or blackberry redcurrant jelly.

I had a naming contest for these at work. My personal favorite is “Jammy Cakey Tarty Thingies”, but it may be reduced to a simple “Jammy Cakes”. I took some tartlet shells and filled them with a bit of Almond Cake batter – a dense and moist almond pound cake – then I plopped in some jam (apricot in some, blackberry red currant jelly in others) and then put more batter on the top.



Funny how all my baked goods look the same – kind of round and golden. Anyway, the crispness of the pastry crust played off of the tender cake in a subtle but very nice way, and the jam was fabulous – next time I would probably add more jam, but I was trying to avoid the potential for them all to turn volcanic in the oven, so I used a bit less than I really wanted to.

Scout, my adoring fan!