Almond Cake
A delicate and elegant Spanish-style almond cake made with ground almonds, eggs, and citrus zest. This flourless cake has a light, tender texture and is finished with a dusting of confectioners' sugar.
Ingredients
- •½ pound blanched whole almonds
- •6 large eggs
- •1¼ cups superfine sugar
- •1 whole orange zest
- •1 whole lemon zest
- •4 drops almond extract
- •2 tablespoons confectioners sugar
Cooking Instructions
- 1.
Finely grind the almonds in a food processor.
5 min
- 2.
With an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks with the sugar to a smooth pale cream. Beat in the zests and almond extract. Add the ground almonds and mix very well.
10 min
- 3.
With clean beaters, beat the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold them into the egg and almond mixture (the mixture is thick, so that you will need to turn it over quite a bit into the egg whites).
10 min
- 4.
Grease an 11-inch springform pan, preferably nonstick, with butter and dust it with flour. Pour in the cake batter, and bake into a preheated 350°F for 40 minutes, or until it feels firm to the touch. Let cool before turning out.
40 min
- 5.
Just before serving, dust the top of the cake with confectioners' sugar. Or, if you like, cut a St. James cross out of paper. Place it in the middle of the cake, and dust the cake with confectioners' sugar, then remove the paper.
5 min