Almond cake

A quick, easy and satisfying recipe for a simple almond cake. In fact, it's so tasty that it would easily be our go-to recipe for coffee sweets if it didn't have so much butter in it... It's wonderful flavor depends on an ingredient unavailable in the United States: bitter almonds. I'm certain, though, that a few drops of decent almond flavoring would make an excellent substitute.

The (very few) ingredients:



10-12 bitter almonds, 1 3/4 oz almonds, 1 1/4 cups of sugar, three eggs, 1/2 cup of flour and nearly 2 sticks of butter (200 g)

Start by grating the almonds. I've got one of these:



Low-tech and reliable, it grates the almonds into fine shavings without grinding them or turning them into almond butter. I've used a box grater, too (which has the added, criminal benefit of removing your fingerprints). I've never actually ground the almonds when making this cake but I'd be surprised if it messed things up too much...



Of course, if you're using almond flavoring, just add an extra 10-12 almonds 1 3/4 oz along with a few drops of flavoring into the batter (later).

Add the flour to the grated almonds and mix together. This lets you incorporate your dry ingredients all at once later to cut back on mixing.



Dump the sugar into the eggs and beat until pale and fluffy.







Next, add the butter to the batter. Normally, I prefer softened (but not melted) butter. I got distracted (three year-olds finding the electric toothbrush can do that...) and let this go too long in the microwave.



Mix until incorporated.

Finally, add the flour and almond mixture to the wet batter and fold to incorporate. As this cake doesn't have any other levening, be careful with those whipped eggs!



Pour the batter into a form. These are non-stick so they don't need to be prepared. Butter and flour/breadcrumb traditional forms.



Finally, bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.



A little homely but looks can be deceiving!

Served:



This was one was a little too moist which I attribute to:

a) using "extra-large" eggs instead of my normal "medium";
b) using melted butter instead of softened;
c) having my "another 5 minutes" vote vetoed by the three junior members of the Bridgestone assembly;
d) all of the above

It still tasted wonderful!

Bridgestone wrote: I got distracted (three year-olds finding the electric toothbrush can do that...) and let this go too long in the microwave.

LOL: I'll never forget the time I found Sparky meticulously cleaning the bathroom with his electric toothbrush (fortunately a disposable one)

I love almond cake, this looks like a winner. Eagerly waiting for the release of the full-color illustrated Bridgestone cookbook to grace my coffee table...

It looks and sounds fabulous. I will be trying this myself.

Regards,

Ms. Ingie

Bridgestone-

I saw your photos come up on Flickr and they were making my mouth water -- I'm glad you posted! I love a "plain" cake -- I'll be making this one for sure in the future.

The light coming in from the window is really lovely. Makes me daydream about a trip to Sweden....