Cranberry Almond Butter Cake

Looking at this messy cake, it may probably not attract one to want to have a try at a piece. But... i can guarantee you that you will regret if you do not try it, especially if you love nuts or anything nutty.

As the name suggest, this cake uses almond meal. I made my own almond meal by grinding whole almonds (with skin) in a blender, hence the almond meal containes traces of the skin in brown which makes the cake prettier and more rustic.

The original recipe uses candied orange but I replaced with cranberries, since I still have a packet of it. My mum don't usually like to eat dried fruit but she like this cake, to my surprise! Because it's full of almonds and cranberries, it crumbles easily and is difficult to get a perfect slice.

This is the top but I flipped it upside down to get a more even top.

There, you see all the almonds and cranberries!

Cranberry Almond Butter Cake

Ingredients:

Blanched almond slivers/chopped whole almonds

60g cranberries

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

85g ground almond (almond meal)

90g icing sugar

25g cake flour, sifted

35g melted butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Lightly grease cake pan with a little softened butter.
2. Spread almonds at the base of the pan in an even layer.
3. Combine eggs and egg yolk and beat lightly. In a separate bowl, combine ground almonds and icing sugar and stir lightly. Add 1/3 of egg mixture to almond mixture and beat with an electric mixer. Repeat with remaining eggs until mixture is light, fluffy and pale. Do not over-beat.
4. Add flour and cramberries to the egg-almond mixture and fold in well.
5. Add melted butter and fold in thoroughly.
6. Pour batter into prepared cake pan (18-cm round pan) and bake for about 40 minutes.
7. When done, remove cake from cake pan and cool on wire rack.

Recipe adapted from: "Okashi Treats" by keiko ishida

This is a no fuss recipe and in fact you don't require a mixer. All you need is just to bear the mixture thoroughyl but not over-beat. Would you like to make your own? :)

I shall stop here as I'm taking some precious time to blog. Time to bed for me. I'm always hoping for sweet dreams of cakes, desserts, pastries.... ;)