Almond Pound Cake

Since my little blog is actually turning 1 today, after much consideration, I felt like a nice dessert/breakfast cake recipe would be appropriate. It’s been a good year, and I feel the blog has come a long way since my first post. I actually find myself checking the blog when making recipes, which means it finally has a good amount of recipes for its “food journal” purpose

I have to thank Natalia from Hot, Cheap and Easy for pointing out this delicious recipe from the Cooks Illustrated cookbook. I have adapted it to make it almondy enough for my taste

Ingredients (makes 1 loaf):

• 16 Tb unsalted butter, cubed (chilled, but slightly softened at room temperature)
• 3 large eggs + 3 yolks (room temperature)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 cup cake flour
• 3/4 cup almond meal
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• ~1/4 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 325 F. Butter and flour a loaf pan (I used a 9×5 pan). Whisk the eggs, yolks and extracts and let sit. Using a mixer, beat the butter and salt until creamy (a few minutes). Continue beating while pouring in the sugar gradually. Beat until fluffy (~ 5 min). Gradually add the egg mixture and beat until all is incorporated. Sift cake flour over and fold in in 2 additions (I have to say I was happy to see a recipe where they don’t ask you to sift together the flour and salt, since I am almost always too lazy and just sift it while adding ). Fold in the almond meal. Pour batter in the loaf pan, level the top and sprinkle with sliced almonds. Bake for until the top is golden and a tester comes out clean (1 hr and 10-20 min). The cake has a lot of butter so the tester may feel wet, but as long as it’s clean of batter, the cake is cooked. Remove from oven, let cool for about an hour, remove from pan and let cool completely (~2 hrs).

Enjoy as after dinner dessert or as breakfast cake with your favorite cup of coffee I have to say, this turned out quite delicious and I love the almond meal in it. I hope you give it a try!

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