5/27/12 12:53 pm - i made this cake
i've had a subscription to food & wine magazine for a while (some groupon deal or other) and sometimes i try to make stuff from it. some of the ingredients and tools the recipes call for are just ridiculous, like planks of some exotic sounding wood cut to a specific size to grill with (i don't remember how exactly). sometimes the recipes sound manageable, like this almond cake with lemon and creme fraiche glaze. the previous week i had made another kind of almond cake using a recipe found on an almond flour packet, so i wanted to see if this one was any better.
so i got all the ingredients and spent an hour or so prepping and mixing and making a mess. i followed the recipe exactly, except for one thing. i only had an 8 inch springform pan, not an 11 inch. i went forward anyway, hoping that extra baking time would help. i ended up baking it 20 minutes longer than the 25 minutes it asks for.
this is how it came out:

i assume the top cracked like that because the outside was fully cooked and the inside not so much. i marched ahead! i made this yummy lemony glaze and pour it on top of the already gooey cake:

then let it sit. i mixed up the creme fraiche glaze for the top and spread it on top (this part wasn't attractive enough to photograph, because by this point the top of the cake fell through and it just looked lumpy).
but hey, even though it didn't cook evenly all the way through it was still pretty delicious. served with vanilla ice cream and berries:

what i'd do differently next time... use the correct sized pan or cook in batches, and also i didn't grind the almonds enough so the cake was a bit more crunchy than it probably should have been. i should also note the recipe called for instant polenta but i had a hard time figuring out if the polenta i bought was instant, so that could have contributed to the crunchiness too.
now how did it compare to the much more simple almond cake recipe on the packet of almond flour? it was just as yummy, but it was much more difficult to make and needed more ingredients!
ah well! adventures in cooking stuff that require lots of ridiculous steps.
*********
on my lj 8 years ago: hoo hah!
on my lj 9 years ago: goin under the knife
so i got all the ingredients and spent an hour or so prepping and mixing and making a mess. i followed the recipe exactly, except for one thing. i only had an 8 inch springform pan, not an 11 inch. i went forward anyway, hoping that extra baking time would help. i ended up baking it 20 minutes longer than the 25 minutes it asks for.
this is how it came out:

i assume the top cracked like that because the outside was fully cooked and the inside not so much. i marched ahead! i made this yummy lemony glaze and pour it on top of the already gooey cake:

then let it sit. i mixed up the creme fraiche glaze for the top and spread it on top (this part wasn't attractive enough to photograph, because by this point the top of the cake fell through and it just looked lumpy).
but hey, even though it didn't cook evenly all the way through it was still pretty delicious. served with vanilla ice cream and berries:

what i'd do differently next time... use the correct sized pan or cook in batches, and also i didn't grind the almonds enough so the cake was a bit more crunchy than it probably should have been. i should also note the recipe called for instant polenta but i had a hard time figuring out if the polenta i bought was instant, so that could have contributed to the crunchiness too.
now how did it compare to the much more simple almond cake recipe on the packet of almond flour? it was just as yummy, but it was much more difficult to make and needed more ingredients!
ah well! adventures in cooking stuff that require lots of ridiculous steps.
*********
on my lj 8 years ago: hoo hah!
on my lj 9 years ago: goin under the knife































