Almond Cake

Friday mornings you can find me hanging with Biscuit. :)  It's become a somewhat enjoyable habit. We go to happy hour (and yes, they do have happy hour for graveyard shifters if anyone was wondering!), we sometimes have breakfast, or we go out later for lunch, we hang out or I watch him shoot pool.  It's always a good time.  And because he cares for his homebound mother, most of those Fridays include a trip to the grocery store.

He gets what he needs for the week and I get what strikes my fancy, depending on what's on sale or what I feel like making the next few days.  There are weeks that his mother will write a list, and we go off of that.  This past week was one of those weeks.  Usually, the list is standard, and most of the time it's always the same thing, but this week there was a glaring addition.

CAKE.

And you all know how I feel about cake.  I told him that I'd make her one, and he accepted (smart boy), so it was then that I was struck with the task of making something quick and yummy.  As I usually do, I hit the web, and found that David (again!) had come up with an adaptation of an almond cake from a restaurant where he was pastry chef, called Chez Panisse.

I liked the idea of almond cake because it's generally incredibly simple; paste, eggs, butter, sugar and flour.  It's also amazingly versatile.  You can eat it plain, or with powdered sugar on top.  With a cup of coffee or tea or without.  You can serve it along side a scoop of ice cream or frozen yogurt, you can top it with berries of your choice, or you can even make a strawberry shortcake (or a modification of such, as almond cake isn't really shortcake..).  You get the idea.  In the end, I liked this recipe so much, I decided this was the cake I was going to make, and if she didn't like it, then he'd eat it anyway.

I've had several comments the last week that people aren't bakers, so they think these recipes are "hard".  The truth is, this one is ridiculously easy!  So try it and let me know what you think and how you did!  Trust me, you can't really screw this up - it's straightforward.

The recipe calls for a food processor, but it's only to make sure that your almond paste (and don't use marzipan!) is finely ground up.  I think a blender (if you don't have a food processor) will work just fine.  I loved the first step, because it makes a nice sugary almond flavored sand-like material!  After I got that, I added it to my trusty mixing bowl and continued on with the recipe.  It worked just fine.  Also, there's a step in there where David warns that your batter will look curdled, but I didn't have that issue either.  Other than that, easy recipe and boy is it delicious!

I'm sure some of you have had the almond pound cake from Tastefully Simple.  This one is a bit less sweet, and a more dense, solid cake than that.  But it's more delicious.  And it gets better with time (I'm still cutting slices from it as I type!).  Give it a try, it's that easy.  Be warned though, it calls for a lot of eggs and a lot of butter (David says he scaled down the butter, so the original recipe called for even more!)  And, well, almond paste isn't cheap. 

I got rave reviews.  And a "this is the best cake I have ever tried."  So, in the end, it's pretty well worth it.

Almond Cake

One 9-inch or 10-inch (23-25 cm) cake

Adapted from Chez Panisse Desserts by Lindsey Remolif Shere

1 1/3 cups (265g) sugar
8 ounces (225g) almond paste (at my store, this is one can)
3/4, plus 1/4 cup (140g total) flour
1 cup (8 ounces, 225g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cubed (this is two sticks)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
6 large eggs, at room temperature

1. Preheat the oven to 325ºF (162ºC). Grease a 9- or 10-inch (23-25 cm) cake or spring form pan with butter, dust it with flour and tap out any excess. Line the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment paper.

Note from Maggie - if you don't know how to line a pan with paper, check this out.  That's how I learned!  :)

2. In the bowl of a food processor, grind the sugar, almond paste, and 1/4 cup (35g) of flour until the almond paste is finely ground and the mixture resembles sand.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 3/4 cup (105g) of flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Once the almond paste is completely broken up, add the cubes of butter and the vanilla and almond extracts, then process until the batter is very smooth and fluffy.

5. Add the eggs one at a time, processing a bit before the next addition. (You may wish to open the machine and scrape the sides down to make sure the eggs are getting fully incorporated.)

After you add all the eggs, the mixture may look curdled. Don’t worry; it’ll come back together after the next step.

6. Add half the flour mixture and pulse the machine a few times, then add the rest, pulsing the machine until the drying ingredients are just incorporated, but do not overmix. (You can also transfer the batter to a bowl and mix the dry ingredients in, which ensures the dry ingredients get incorporated evenly and you don’t overbeat it.)

7. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake the cake for 65 minutes, or until the top is deep brown and feels set when you press in the center.

8. Remove the cake from the oven and run a sharp or serrated knife around the perimeter, loosing the cake from the sides of the pan. Let the cake cool completely in the pan.

Once cool, tap the cake out of the pan, remove the parchment paper, and set on a cake plate until ready to serve.

This cake keeps for at least four days, and can be frozen for up to a month.  Enjoy!