Almond Cake

I have never posted a cake before, I always baked in lil batches and they were all over by the time they came out of the oven... I envy my Mom, she makes magnificent cakes and cookies, how much I miss all those goodies... Used to help her measure and mix the batter, spilling all over and wait till the end to lick the remains from the mixing bowl... And obviously she had lotsa to clean after our venture of baking cakes... Now this is my speciality cake, our friend Ven's fav he requested me to make this cake for him, I being very lazy used to give 'im some or the other excuse saying I dint find that or this etc. Ven took it in his hands and bought me the flour 4 months back... ;)

Ask me why I dint do this, oh yeah again I gave him lame excuses as usual... I later realized that 1 pack of the flour was all over... I hear to clear and loud you ask me how did that happen, I gradually started using the flour for my bread ;) Today I decided oh yeah am gonna make it for sure and here came the cake.

For more Almond Cake pictures from my kitchen please visit My Other Blog

Ingredients:

Almond Flour - 6 ozs
Semi Sweet Chocolate - 6 ozs (I used Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Morsels)
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Eggs - 6 nos. separated
Butter - 1 1/2 sticks

Breadcrumbs - 2 tbsps

Method:

1. Bring Butter to room temperature and cream it with sugar.
2. Add Egg Yolks one at a time and whip it with the cream (Add all the 6 Egg Yolks).
3. Chop the Morsels, I used a nut chopper to chop them down. Mix it with the batter.
4. Spoon in the Almond Flour one spoon at a time and mix well.
5. Beat the Egg Whites until they form a structure. Slowly add the Egg Whites and mix well.
6. Grease a 9" baking pan and cut down parchment paper and spread it on the baking pan and sprinkle breadcrumbs
7. Preheat the oven to 375 Degree, bake the cake for the first 20 mins at 375 Degree. Reduce the temperature to 350 and bake for 30 more mins.
8. Remove the cake and cool them on a cooling rack.

Note: Old ovens do not have a vent to release the heat inside so open it once in between to let the hot air out.

Caution: A word of caution, there is no baking powder or any other raising agent so the cake raises to the max when baked but later they fall rock bottom, thats the nature of the cake so dont really worry about that.



Ganache:

Ingredients:

Half & Half Milk - 3/4 cup
Dry coffee Powder - 2 tsps
Semi Sweet Chocolate - 8 ozs (Ghirardelli Morsels)
Molases - 1 tbsp

Method:

1. In a heavy bottom pan, heat Half & Half when it comes to a rolling boil add the Coffee Powder and keep stirring all the while.
2. Drop the Chocolate Morsels and Molases and mix thoroughly well until the chocolate is melted.
3. Let it cool and spread on the cake. Decorate with Almonds.



Note: Do not refridgerate the cake, the Ganache will loose its shine so prepare it the day you like to serve it.

Almond Cake goes to Poornimas "For the Love of Chocolate!!" event.



And it goes to Cooking 4 all Seasons's Mithai Mela