Spanish ALMOND CAKE

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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Since a few months gluten-intolerance is a topic in our family. So, here a delicious cake without flour from Spain. Certainly also an option for Thanksgiving.

Ingredients

200g blanched almonds (not salty)

200g sugar

6 eggs

1 organic-lemon (only peel!)

1 organic orange (only peel!)

24-26cm springform pan (9,5-10inch)

icing sugar

Preparation

  1. Chopp the almonds in a food-prozessor very fine

  2. Seperate egg yolk and egg white. Put egg white in a Kitchen aid or Kenwood etc.

  3. Whipp the egg white until firm

  4. Mix egg yolk with sugar and combine until sugar is dissolved

  5. Then add chopped almonds with lemonpeel + orange peel, in addition add carefully firm egg white and combine

  6. Add everything to a buttered springform pan and put in the oven for 45-50min by 170C / 340F

  7. Remove from the oven and let it cool down. In addition remove part of the springform. Finally add icing sugar on top. Optional serve with ice cream.

IMG_8586

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Simple and delicious. I’ve always liked the tarta de Santiago.

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How finely are the almonds to be chopped?
Also, how critical is it that the lemon and orange be organic?
Finally, would a glaze of marmalade be out of place?

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Very fine! (machine only)
It‘s your health!
NO marmalade! (only for cakes with fruit)

P.S. Patisserie is different to normal cooking. In addition you have to use a scale which is not such necessary for cooking

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5

BTW, I have seen versions of this cake with Brandy and/or cinnamon. But I am purist!

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Thanks. Noted about no glaze.
Brandy has made me think of Grand Marnier, the blue label. Just a hint I don’t think this is a boozey cake. Cinnamon seems a terrible idea to me.

One more question - how long would the cake keep in a cold fridge , also could it be frozen. It would seem to be a good accompaniment to ice cream (cake defrosted if frozen).

Scales & baking vs cooking - that is the conventional wisdom but Heston Blumenthal in particular advocates weighing everything in cooking. I think the driver of that is consistency. I do find it frustrating when a recipe mixes things up - eg 250 ml of stock but then calls for 2 large carrots , say - how large is large? Is a European large the same as US large ?

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Venti is large

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In the fridge for a week and in the freezer for a year and maybe more. Of course this almond cake is great with ice cream.

I just found last week a forgotten orange cake in the freezer, for 1 year in the freezer.
It was great, like fresh made.

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Would almond flour work here?

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I plan to try it or rather my daughter will. I sent her the link to make the cake.

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Sorry, I don’t know.

Regarding the almonds, the best are from Sicily and Spaiin, especially Mallorca.

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I’ve tried it both ways and found freshly ground almonds were vastly superior

I suspect that’s because almond flour might have sat in packaging/on the shelf much too long

13

That makes sense.

I guess I was really asking about how fine the almonds, if using fresh. should be chopped in the food processor? I did not read the recipe as implying as fine as flour. It said chopped not ground.

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I wrote in the recipe to use a food-prozessor that means very fine.

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The finer the grind the better. Same with a linzertorte recipe. Almond flour tends to be a bit drier. I think they add a bit of starch to it to extend shelf life. Ground almonds to me seem to be denser
There are different varieties of almonds that can lend different characteristics(think sweet almonds vs bitter as an example). Spanish varieties by nature tend to have a higher oil content then their american counterparts.

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So is it fair to say almond flour will work, and maybe easy route for first try; but very fine ground fresh almonds better?

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So, last week-end I had the chance to taste 2 versions, one with almond flour and one with fresh grounded almonds. Bottom-line, the one with almond flour is okay, but the version with fresh grounded almonds is much better flavorwise.

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18

Thanks Martin. I made a half recipe tonight with almond flour (on hand and needed to be used) in an 18cm springform pan, it was a big hit with both my kids home from school. One difference was to add a half teaspoon of baking powder to give it a more cake-like crumb. So many possibilities for things to serve with this.

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