This is a proper almond cake! Moist, sweet and decadently almondy. I urge you to make one as soon as you can, allow it to cool, brew a strong coffee, pull up a chair and indulge in a slice or two.
I have adapted this from a recipe by Mary Berry. Far be it from me to suggest that Mary Berry’s cakes can be improved upon, but when I made her almond cake from The Aga Book the other week, whilst I enjoyed it, it just wasn’t quite almondy enough for my taste. So I swapped the quantities of ground almond to flour and replaced one egg with 150ml of yoghurt and Bob’s your uncle, it turned out to be just what I was longing for.
175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
150ml natural yoghurt ( I use Greek yoghurt)
1 tsp almond extract
200g ground almonds
100g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
25g flaked almonds for the top of the cake
Method
Beat the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, whisking well between each addition. Add the yoghurt and the almond extract and beat well.
Add the ground almonds, flour and baking powder and fold in carefully.
Pour into a greased and lined 20cm cake tin and sprinkle with the flaked almonds.
Bake in a preheated oven at 160°c, gas mark 3, or on the grid shelf on the floor of the Baking Oven of the Aga for about 1 hour until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
This looks moist, fluffy and nutty! Pour me a cup of coffee, and I’ll be right over.
Cafetiere is filled! x
Yummy! That looks absolutely delicious- lovely sunny picture!
Thank you Kate, I was making the most of the fine weather we were having that hour, before the rain came again. Ah, the English summer!
Absolutely Golden.
there’s synchronous almond cakes being made in my food blogosphere network–yesterday at Chez Danisse, and now yours. I think the kitchen gods are trying to tell me something!
Thank you Nancy. I took a look at Denise’s and was really intrigued with the use of almond paste as the basis for the cake. I must try that sometime. I think the golden colour is from my lovely home grown hen eggs. The best way to get a golden cake.
I’ve got a lot of ground alm0nds in the cupboard and was wondering how to use them up ……. now I know. Thanks for the inspiration.
Glad to be of help. When you have made it let me know and I will be round for a slice and a cup of tea.
I absolutely love almonds and they are very good for you too. I would love your version of this, the moister the better in my book, and less flour and more ground almonds is healthier in a low-carbs way.
Oh thank goodness, my eating the whole cake nearly to myself is actually good for me. Thank you, thank you Cathy.
You may not feel able to say it, but I can. Of course you can improve on Mary Berry and it very much sounds as though you have. Yum yum, love the slice or two
Aw thank you Choc.
I love it when you do cakes (I’m keen on Choc’s cake posts also).
Both your cakes always look so fresh – you can’t get cakes like that anywhere. And, I can’t bake ‘em like that either (Boo – but one day, I shall…)
VBB – glad you said that, might have got jealous otherwise
He is very diplomatic and chivalric isn’t he.
Love using almond flour in cakes – this looks beautifully moist:)
Thanks Nic, it was very tasty and I managed to polish off pretty much the whole cake singlehandedly. Oops!
Beautiful. I love the slivered almonds on top.
Thank you Denise. I am definitely going to try your method with the almond paste soon though. That sounds wonderful.
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I have been thinking about almond cake for weeks now and I’ve had three recipes for almond cake open on the table for the last 3 days. Now this, it sounds perfect- I am going to try it today. Hope you are having a good summer Rx
Hi Rach,
It seems you are destined to make almond cake. We are having a really lovely summer. xx
I have just made your delicious cake!! Superb recipe. Love the yoghurt in it. It gives it a very subtle slightly sour taste which I love. I used sugar that I keep with vanilla pods in it to lavour and I only added half a teaspoon of almond essence as I did not want this to dominate. Glorious and fantastic. Well tweeked.
Brilliant Laura, I am really pleased that you like it. I really like using yoghurt in baking, you are absolutely right about it adding just the right amount of sourness. Using vanilla sugar always makes things better. Thank you for letting me know how you got on with the recipe, I love getting feedback.