A Very Easy Almond Cake to Deliver Joy
🍹 great healthy-ish cake you can make with or without orgeat!
Hello there!
Cowabunga! More folks have signed up for the cooking classes than I anticipated. According to Eventbrite where the registration is happening next weekend’s class is “🔥 Going fast.” I’m not sure what the metrics are but the fact that many PTFSrs signed up thrills me to bits.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out the 8/18 Imperial Roll Feast cooking class here.
Paid PTFS subscribers receive 20 percent off when they use the promo code detailed in this post. I can’t wait for all of us to roll our own together on Zoom. 😆
Now about the almond cake. During the past two weeks, sweet almond-y aromas have filled our kitchen many times. Why? Because I wanted to offer you an easy, delicious, versatile recipe to play with and it took me four (4) iterations to get this almond cake right.
The cake recipe started out as an unexpected bonus from an amazing orgeat recipe in The Bartender’s Pantry (TBP) by Jim Meehan and Bart Sasso. You make toasted almond milk for the syrup and after squeezing the heck out of the ground soaked nuts, you’re left with about 229 grams (8 ounces) of extremely fine almond solids.
TBP’s recipe suggested composting the leftovers, but the stuff was tasty and still loaded with toasted almond flavor and richness.
My mama didn’t raise no fool. Viet people do not like to waste food. I’ve underscored that in my cookbooks. Cue using stale baguette for steamed banh mi lettuce wraps in Ever-Green Vietnamese and overripe fruit for the banana-coconut bread-pudding cake in Vietnamese Food Any Day.
Back to the almonds. The nut can be costly to buy and require lots of natural resources to cultivate. Could the almond solids be used to craft a cake?
That’s how I ended up spending time with another good book, Snacking Bakes by
. A skilled recipe developer, photographer and food stylist, Yossy offers a wealth of easygoing sweets. They’re based on certain formulas that she’s come up with and they’re bulletproof. Like any solid, confident cookbook writer, she encourages cooks to play with her recipes in her book.
So I played around with Yossy’s recipe, tweaking her formula for a strawberry-lime almond cake to make a summery almond marzipan-ish cake.
Because I had the blender out for making the peach puree and orgeat, I used it for the cake batter. The blender minimized mess to make the batter in minutes.
Remember the easy lime pound cake? We know that the food processor and blender can make tender cake!
4 Rounds of Testing
In four rounds of baking, I used unbleached and whole wheat flour to great success. I lowered the sugar, tried different fruit and directed the cake flavor to say almond-marzipan more than citrus-fruit. I gifted my cakes to very happy neighbors. Rory and I tried it for breakfast, afternoon treats, and evening dessert.
We never tired of the almond cake.
This is a keeper recipe that you should have in your repertoire. The almond cake’s virtues include:
5-minute, versatile batter that’s made with minimal mess
Keeps super well (freeze it, if you want!)
Sturdy yet tender (it transports easily)
Reheats in a toaster oven like a dream
Great in the morning, afternoon, or evening
Dress it with jam, fresh fruit, orgeat, whipped cream, or ice cream
A video of how the recipe comes together:
⚡️ Below are my baking notes, bonus video tips for how to make the cake your own, plus the recipe and downloadable PDF.
No leftover orgeat solids? I’ve got you covered with swap options! 😉
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