Almond Cake for Sunday Tea?

Hello my lovelies!

Happy Sunday.  What are you doing today?  A bit of baking maybe for Sunday afternoon tea?

That used to be a thing in childhood, my dad (yes  my dad!) would occasionally bake a cake and it was such a thrill to bite into a slice straight out of the oven.  We didn’t wait around for it to cool in our house!  A coconut slab cake was his specialty. 

Now they do say that old habits die hard. 

They say that if you do something for 30 days it becomes habit. .

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Well 3 months of habit forming ain’t goin nowhere fast!

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I’m still comfort baking even though we’re pretty much out of lockdown.

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I’ve made this one a few times recently.  Almond cake with a butter icing.  Delish!

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And I made a pinky promise on Insta to share the recipe on the blog, so today I’m keeping my promise. 

Almond Cake

Coffee and a piece of cake!

Ingredients

4oz/115gr butter

6oz/170gr sugar

2 eggs, separated 

1 tspn vanilla extract 

6oz/170gr self raising flour

1/2 tspn baking powder 

4fl.oz/120 milk

2oz/55gr ground almonds

Butter icing filling: make up to your usual recipe.  For this cake size I use 4oz of sifted icing sugar to 2 oz softened butter, a dash of vanilla extract, then about 1 tbspn milk to give it a spreading consistency. 

Method

Line a 6in/15cm cake tin *. 

Pre-heat the oven to 180c/350f. 

Whisk the two egg whites to stiff peaks stage and set aside. 

Cream the butter and sugar together. 

Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla quickly into the mix to avoid curdling. 

Sift the flour and baking powder over the mix and blend together. 

Add the almonds and milk and mix well. 

Gently fold in the egg whites into the mix. 

Pour into the lined tin and take for 50-60 minutes, depending on your oven; mine is fast and 50 mins does it for me, so I suggest you test it around 45 mins.  It’s cooked when a thin knife inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean and dry. 

Turn out on a wire rack and leave to cool. 

When cool, slice carefully horizontally through the middle and smooth out your butter icing over the bottom half. Replace the top half.  Sift icing sugar over the top of the cake just before serving. 

NB: the cake keeps well for several days in a closed container. 

*my photographed cake looks a bit rustic around the edges because I used a cake tin liner larger than the tin I used. 

But at least it looks homemade!

Ok, my piece of cake wasn’t the whole of the cake, just a modest slice.

But you can always go back for more!

Enjoy. 

A la perchoine.

Mary x