almond cake

almond cake

• 24 Apr 2013

Whenever there's a celebration in our family we serve Mum's famous almond cake. Today I'm sharing a recipe for a chocolate almond cake that's very similar to my Mum's almond cake. I made the cake in my sweet little 17 cm cake tin but if you want to make a 23 cm cake, just double all the ingredients and keep the baking time the same.



It's a Dutch Chocolate cake heavily adapted from a recipe in Das Neue Kiehnle-Kochbuch, which uses eggs as the raising agent so there are a scary number of eggs in the recipe.



The finished cake is nice and moist and has loads of texture. There is no flour in the cake just dried breadcrumbs and ground whole almonds and the cake is flavoured with lemon and chocolate. When I was growing up Mum and I would hand grate the chocolate and use a mouli mill to grind the almonds. These days I use a food processor to grind the almonds but if you can buy whole almond meal that will save you a step.



Once the egg whites are beaten you need a gentle hand to fold them through the batter otherwise the cake won't rise. I like to make the cake the day before it's served to allow all the flavours to develop.


The original recipe topped the cake with a chocolate ganache but we've always served the cake with lashings of whipped cream. As I made the cake to celebrate Farmer Andrew's birthday, I made some chocolate shards to top the cake.



Here's the printable recipe for you. 
Dutch Chocolate Cake (makes one 17 cm cake)
100 gm softened unsalted butter
100 gm caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 large eggs, separated
60 gm dark chocolate, grated
1 small lemon, rind grated and juice strained
60 gm ground whole almonds
60 gm dried breadcrumbs
1 extra tablespoon caster sugar

To serve
300 ml whipped cream
chocolate curls

Grease and line a 17 cm spring form tin with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
 
In a medium size bowl, cream the butter, 100 gm caster sugar, lemon rind and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time until thoroughly mixed. Add the ground almonds, grated chocolate, breadcrumbs and lemon juice in 3 batches, mixing thoroughly.

In a clean dry bowl, beat the four egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add the extra tablespoon of caster sugar and beat until the sugar dissolves, then gently fold the egg whites through the cake batter. Gently spoon the cake batter into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 1 hour at 180°C/350°F until the cake tests cooked and the edges pull away from the sides of the tin.

Allow the cake to cool completely on a wire rack before removing from the tin. Serve with lashings of whipped cream and chocolate curls.




The cake disappeared in a flash as you can see by the photo and it tasted just like my Mum's cake. I do hope you enjoy the recipe.

I'll be back next week with a shopshoot for you.

Bye for now,

Jillian