Almond cake with Almond Sweet Icing (Happy Bday my dear Hubby!!)

Posted On November 23, 2011

Almond Cake with Coffee Buttercream Frosting & Almond Sweet Icing.

Yet again, a special day in our Family. Its Birthday time !!! We celebrated Kesav’s Birthday yesterday with this Gorgeous Almond Cake. This time too I want to make a special cake for my hubby dear, something completely different from what I have done before. Really, baking a cake and icing it, is an experience in itself. Â I wanted to try out something unique this time..something of my own… so I tried this almond cake with homemade almond icing and buttercream frosting. Well, the name icing and frosting is often used interchangeably, there is not much difference. Ok…If you wonder if this is Operah Cake?. Though this one also has almond as the main ingredient, the method and frosting for an Operah Cake are different. I will try out the Operah cake some other time.

I would like to call my customized Almond icing on top of the cake as Indian flavored Marzipan. It has less stability in making intricate designs but tastes so much better. The traditional Marzipan is made of Almond flour and raw Egg whites. It has very good stability in making figurines. But we liked the Indian style a bit better.

Ingredients:

For Almond Cake

1. Whole Almonds – 200gms
2. Milk – 2 cups
3. White Flour – 1 1/2 cup
4. Butter – 200gms
5. Sugar – 2 cups
6. Egg – 6
7. Baking Powder – 2 1/2 tsp
8. Vanilla Essence – few drops

Almond Sweet

The recipe for Almond Sweet is here . Â Instead of Rose essence, I have added powdered Cardamom 1/2 tsp to the almond dough.

Coffee Butter Cream Icing

1. Coffee – 2 Tbs
2. Sugar – 100gms
3. Butter – 50 gms

Method:

For Almond Cake

1. Blanch almonds in hot water for 15 min and remove the skin.

2. Add the blanched almonds in milk in a blender and grind it to a smooth paste.( this yields 2 cups)

3. Add Butter and Sugar in a bowl and beat it with a hand mixer.

4. Beat the egg in another bowl and the essence. Now add the rest of the ingredients slowly one by one by beating it with a hand mixer.

5. Preheat the oven to 180 C and bake it for 25 mins at 180 C.

For Butter Cream Icing

1. Add butter in a bowl and cream it with mixer.

2. Add sugar to it and mix it well.

3. Add 1 Tbs of hot water to instant coffee and  let it cool.

4. Add this with Sugar and Butter mixture.

Layering the Cake

1. Cut the cake horizontally into two layers.

2. Fill Coffee buttercream icing in between the layer.

3. Roll the almond sweet dough into a thin layer with Rolling pin and cover the cake. (Add your favorite colors as you like)

4. Add sugar decorative on top to be more attractive.