Toasted almond cake

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 1 cake, you will need:

• 1 150 g flour
• 2 ½ sachet baking powder
• 3 3 Eggs
• 4 125 g butter
• 5 100 g whole almonds
• 6 200 g icing sugar
• 7 10 g Vanilla sugar
• 8 20 g powdered cocoa
• 9 4 tablespoons Milk
• Total weight: 820 grams

Times:

Preparation	Cooking	Start to finish
60 min.	1 hour 5 min.	2 hours 2 min.

Step by step recipe

1	Roast 100 g whole almonds: Preheat oven to 240°C or 464°F and put almonds on a baking sheet.
2	Put them in the oven for about 5 minutes, until they are dried and lightly browned. They become crunchier, and develop a different flavour.
3	Remove from oven, allow to cool, and chop roughly with a large knife. Set aside.
4	In the bowl of a mixer, put 125 g butter, cut in small pieces, then 10 g Vanilla sugar, then sieve (to remove any lumps) 200 g icing sugar on top.
5	Mix on medium speed for a few minutes.
6	Add 3 Eggs, then sieve onto mixture 150 g flour and ½ sachet baking powder.
7	Mix on medium speed until the mixture is smooth and soft.
8	Take ¼ of mixture from bowl.
9	To this add 20 g powdered cocoa and 4 tablespoons Milk.
10	Mix until nice and chocolatey, then add 2/3 of the almonds.
11	Add the remaining almonds to the plain mixture. It's normal to have far more "yellow" than "brown" mixture.
12	Make the cake: put a yellow layer in the bottom of your mould, then a thinner brown layer, and so on, finishing with yellow layer on top.
13	Reduce oven temperature to 200°C or 392°F, and cook cake for about one hour. Check cooking after 40 minutes. Turn out while still warm and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Remarks

For a prettier cake: when assembling the layers, put a yellow layer, then add 2 rolls of brown mixture with a forcing bag, then another yellow layer, etc.

---