Recipe: Almond cake with roasted fruit for spring
Recipe: Erica Goodfriend
Our very own broker, Erica Goodfriend, a trained pastry chef, shares a spring dessert that feels light, bright, and right for the season. Her almond cake with roasted fruit pairs a tender, buttery crumb with jammy, caramelized fruit and softly whipped cream. It’s simple, generous baking that lets good ingredients do most of the work.
Almond Cake
Ingredients:
7oz Almond Paste
135g Sugar
2 sticks (8oz) Butter at room temperature
4 Eggs and 1 Yolk
1 tablespoon Vanilla Paste or Extract
100g All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 ½ teaspoon Salt
Directions:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, and almond paste with the paddle attachment.
Beat the eggs, one at a time, into the whipped sugar and butter. Add the vanilla.
Scrape down the bowl and add the dry ingredients all at once. Mix it just until the flour disappears. Put it into a greased and papered 8 or 9” cake pan (either works, just make sure if it’s smaller that it has some room to grow in the oven). Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35+ minutes until it is no longer jiggly in the center and it springs back to the touch.
Roasted Fruit
Ingredients:
1lb Fruit, left whole or halved and de-pitted
Brown Sugar
White Sugar
Salt
Olive Oil
Vanilla Paste or better yet, a Vanilla Bean split and scraped
Directions:
This is less of a recipe and more of a way of life. Depending on the fruit, you will need more or less sugar. Brown sugar is less sweet than white so you will need more of it. I like to do a healthy mix of both, coating the fruit evenly in a drizzle of olive oil and sugar mixture, with just a small sprinkle of salt over top and a vanilla bean laying over top finishes it. I often will coat the fruit in an 8x8” baking dish so there’s no bowl necessary. Cherries benefit a lot from this treatment, it’s truly to die for. Roast in a 450 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until the fruit is bubbly and syrupy and a little burnt on the edges but not so cooked that it loses its shape. Strawberries will need less time while apricots or stone fruit can roast for longer.
Whipped Topping & Assembly
Ingredients:
1 cup Whipping Cream
¼ cup Powdered Sugar
Hefty spoonful of Creme Fraiche
1 teaspoon Vanilla Paste or Extract
Directions:
Once the cake is cool, whip the cream with some powdered sugar and vanilla. When it’s nearly ready, add a hefty spoonful of creme fraiche and finish whipping to soft peaks. Place the cake on a nice plate and spread the whipped cream on top. Then, place the cool jammy roasted fruit on top of that. Serve immediately.