This almond pound cake is made with almond paste. and It would probably be best sitting in my Italian bread recipes collection since it's one of our more denser (is that a word?). But since it has the word "cake" in the title I've put it in my Italian cakes section. Where I'm going with this is - the almond paste is what makes this a nice moist dense cake.
If you have never used almond paste before - it's not scary. You can find it in the baking section of the grocery store - it's not dirt cheap, but you won't have to skip the utility bill either to buy it.
A big thing with this almond pound cake recipe (and I mention it in the procedure section) is, you gotta be friendly with your mixer. You gotta know your speeds. You gonna use two of them. The "fast" and the "just mix don't kill it" speed.
To get the almond paste blended is one speed, and then when you combine - be careful. This is where a lot of people quit thinking. When you combine all your ingredients you want to do just that - c-o-m-b-i-n-e. Not kill. Not - just get it over with. Just combine.
Why?
Because over-beating will get you a tough pound cake. We are going for a dense moist pound cake. And just paying attention to your mixer speeds will get you that professional bakery quality
This almond pound cake is one of those easy cake recipes that's hard to go wrong with. And I just gave you the mixer-tip to put you on top of the other "amateurs" out there. You should score good with this one.
Bake on! And thanks for stopping by -
* 1 - 7 ounce box of almond paste, grated
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup of butter
* 4 eggs
* 2 cups white flour
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 cup of milk
* Preheat oven to 325 degrees
* Spray or grease a a 9x5 loaf pan (or I use bundt pan, or my spring form with the "hole" in the middle)
* Get out your electric mixer - because you will need it to break apart the almond paste
* Place the almond paste, sugar and butter in a bowl. Break apart the almond paste with your hands.(If you don't you will burn out your beater motor trying to get it to blend!)
* Blend those ingredients together with your mixer. But look at it real good to make sure you have the paste blended in. (It can be stubborn!)
* Add your eggs ONE at a time, beating well after each egg.
* Beat on high until "fluffy"
* Sift together your baking powder and flour (yes, sifting is a v-e-r-y good thing, so try not to skip!)
* Add the sifted flour/powder alternately with the milk to your almond-egg-butter-sugar mixture.
* Here's where you DON'T want to beat it hard - crank the mixer down and blend the ingredients. (If you keep it on high - your cake will be tough)
* Bake for for or until you pass the toothpick test
* TIP: You never know what kind of oven a recipe author has - so set your timer to 5 minutes before the suggested finish time. That way you don't risk YOUR cake coming out dry!
Nope. Not here. Not only are you looking for the dense texture of a pound cake - but the almond paste give a unique "grain" to the texture. "Subbing" it out won't get that. If you really want to use an almond flavoring, I'd suggest you try my almond cake recipe , it uses almond flavor. It's super easy. And if you can wait a day after cooking - it will settle into a denser type cake. But short answer - don't sub on this almond pound cake.
Italian cakes and Italian bread recipes carry a lot of similarities. These are denser, richer - and we don't doctor them up much. We let the bread or pound cake speak for itself. However, you notice in my picture my cake has raspberries on it. It's not because they are so super special or make it so fantastic. It's only because raspberries were on sale that morning. So here's a few things I noticed my grandma serving with pound cakes:
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