Almond Cake with Macaroon Top - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (2/100)

Another unusual cake method from Hummingbird Bakery! Butter and marzipan are creamed together, before icing sugar (rather than the usual caster sugar) is added. The marzipan replaces the need for almond extract, and despite the small quantity, imparts a good flavour - not overpowering, but not so subtle that you miss it.

This is also a cake to make you nervous - it requires removing the cake from the oven before it is done, at a stage the recipe terms, "almost done," then applying a macaron batter directly to the top of the cake. It flies in the face of just about everything you're taught about baking - don't open the oven door before the cake is ready, and certainly don't weigh down a cake that is liable to sink (because it wasn't ready) with a wet macaron batter!

Surprisingly, however, it worked! (And, I would like to point out, better than the cake in the book, which has a dip in the middle!) I baked the cake at 150C fan, (Home Sweet Home doesn't give fan temperatures) for 40 minutes, until it was a lovely golden brown on top, and sprang back when prodded, but was still "singing" (an ear placed near the cake heard crackling noises) and then topped it with the macaron.

The recipe also notes that a springform tin is essential, or the cake won't turn out. I didn't read this until I had turned the cake out, and I can verify that if you just use a loose bottomed tin and fully line the sides and bottom with non-stick baking paper, the cake will turn out. My cake is slightly smaller at 7+1/2 inches in diameter, as this was the closest to an 8 inch diameter tin that I had.

Ingredients:
Sponge:
80g fine yellow cornmeal (I used maize meal, which I found in my local independent wholefood shop)
80g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
115g unsalted butter, softened
50g marzipan
200g icingsugar
4 large egg yolks
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
60g sour cream
Macaroon:
2 large egg whites
125g caster sugar
125g ground almonds

Oooh, look! A nice shiny badge for this bake along (thanks to my genius brother) - if you want to join us on our bake through Home Sweet Home, please do! You don't have to join in for all of it, but if you join us, why not use this badge and pop a link below so we know we're not the only crazy ones out there! (If this proves popular, I'll add a link-up tool so everyone can see what's going on)

HTML code to insert badge (copy and paste): 

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 Next up: Linzer Cookies!

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