Honey Almond Cake

 


Yesterday I was in a completely cake-y kind of a mood.  Biscuits wouldn't do.  Neither would chocolate.  I JUST had to have cake.  I think we all have those days, don't we?



Upon looking in my cupboard I noticed that I have rather a LOT of honey on hand.  I keep buying it when I go shopping, thinking I want to have some on toast as a bedtime snack, forgetting that I already have umpteen jars of it in the cupboard already.  (Isn't everybody like that???  Or am I just a glutton???? Don't answer that!) 

 

Anyways, you can never have too much honey, right?  Right.  I do the same thing with almonds.   I am always picking up bags of the flaked and the ground.  I use them a lot in my cooking and they keep really well in the freezer.   There is nothing worse than going to make a recipe and finding out you don't have any flaked or ground almonds.  (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)



So anyways, back to wanting cake.   Noticing that I had a lot of honey in the cupboard and almonds in the freezer I decided to make a honey almond cake.  Basically I just topped my favourite plain cake recipe with a drizzle of honey and some flaked almonds . . .



It turned out fabulous!  Nice and sweet and nutty crunchy on top . . . but then I added an additional indulgence.  I split and filled it with some vanilla butter-cream icing.  You can make your own or use ready made.  It's really easy to make though.    I have a great recipe for  it here.   If you want even more honey flavour, substitute some liquid honey for some of the milk.



I like to use Vanilla paste.  With that you get to see the little flecks of vanilla seed throughout the cake.  I love that.  You can use regular vanilla if you want though.   That's good too.



In any case, I ended up with a really scrummy cake and my need for cake was fulfilled.  Cake for breakfast is good right???  Coz this is so good, I think I'm going to have a slice, right now.  For breakfast.

*Honey Almond Cake*
Makes one 9 inch cake

Printable Recipe  

This is a lovely cake, dense, buttery and moist and covered with the sweet crunch of honeyed almonds!

245g of plain flour (1 3/4 cups)

1 TBS baking powder (yes that is 1 tablespoon!)

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

8 TBS of unsalted butter, softened (1 stick or 1/2 cup, 125g)

140g of golden caster sugar (2/3 cup)

2 large free range eggs

1 tsp vanilla paste (can use extract, but I like the flavour that the vanilla paste gives,
plus the little black flecks of the seeds throughout the cake)

6 TBS whole milk

To top:

liquid honey about 60ml (1/3 cup)

60g of flaked almonds (a heaped half cup)

To fill:

your favourite butter-cream recipe

(You can use 1 TBS of liquid honey to replace some of the milk for
more honey flavour)  

Preheat the oven to 190*C375*F/ gas mark 5.  Butter a 9 inch round spring form pan and dust it lightly with flour.  Set it aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.   Beat in the vanilla paste.  Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together.  Add this to the creamed mixture in 3 additions, adding alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour.   Beat only enough to blend.  Spread in the prepared pan.   

Drizzle most of the honey over top of the cake.  Scatter on the flaked almonds and then drizzle the remainder of the honey over top of them.  (I use a squeeze bottle of honey and it makes it a lot simpler.  You could warm the honey and brush it on if you wanted to, but I like to do it this way.)

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until the cake is well risen and golden brown, and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.   Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before loosening the sides of the pan and removing.  Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.      

 

When the cake is completely cooled, carefully cut it in half horizontally through the middle.  Spread the bottom layer with the butter cream and then replace the top, pressing down gently.  If desired you may sprinkle the top lightly with some icing sugar.   Cut into wedges to serve.