Luscious Almond Cake with Orange tang

Well well..... birthdays, anniversaries or just those random sweet cravings, baking is my all time favorite! 24th April was Hardik's birthday when I made this beautiful and truly luscious Almond cake with orange tang and I cannot begin to explain how flavorful and appetizing it was.

Germans are well known for their long tradition of baking and this recipe is from once such hardcore German. I ate this cake first time when I was pursuing my German language classes here in Germany. Our teacher baked it for us in different flavors, on special occasions that we celebrated in our school.

Soooo spongy...

When I ate it for the first time I was so cheery because, the taste took me back to the time when I was a little kid and my dear Grandpa would bring me muffins from a parsi bakery whenever I visited my Grandparents! Unfortunately the bakery was shut when I was little. Later, whenever I would visit them, I would ask my grandpa to get that same muffin for me... poor fellow would get it from some other bakery but the taste wasn't the same and it would't make me that joyous.

And this cake is soooooo soooo similar to those muffins I had in childhood. I immediately requested my teacher to give me her recipe and she was kind enough to share it instantly.

So without much a do lets get started with the recipe.

Here is a step by step recipe video for y'all, to give you guys an overview of how to make this sheet cake.

Almond Cake with orange tang

also known as blechkuchen (sheet cake) in German

Prep Time: 20 min

Bake Time: 25 min

Total Time: 45 min

1 cup= 250 ml

Ingredients

For the cake

1 cup cream

150 g sugar (raw cane sugar)

2 cups All purpose Flour

4 Eggs*

8 g baking powder

16 g vanilla sugar

For the topping

125 g butter

1 cup sugar

150 g Almonds (Blanched whole or sliced, I used blanched whole almonds)

4 tbsp milk

1.5 tbsp zest of orange*

For baking

Oven

Baking paper

A rectangular baking tray*

Directions

- Pre heat the oven to 200 ° C.

- For the cake batter, beat together the cream, sugar, vanilla sugar and eggs.

- Mix the flour with baking powder, sieve it with a flour strainer and fold it into the beaten mixture. I used fork to mix this batter, you may use electronic whisker if you desire.

- Then place the dough on a baking sheet lined with baking paper for 10 min. Bake in preheated oven at 200 ° C. - In the meantime, make the almond icing.

- Take a sauce pan and start melting butter on a low flame.

- Then add in 1 cup sugar, 150 g almonds, 4 tablespoons milk and the orange zest.

- Cook all the ingredients until sugar is dissolved. And keep mixing it constantly until done. Do not over cook it.

- Then remove the cake from the oven, add this icing layer and bake the cake again for 10 - 15 min or until the almonds starts to brown and the cake looks set.

- Tadaaa... Luscious almond cake with orange tang is ready to eat with a warm cup of coffee. Pl. note do not leave the cake open on the dining table, the smell will literally compel you to eat it all day😅. I can tell you this because I endured this cheerfully 😋

Special Tips

*I have some egg replacement options below and be rest assured that it will not change the flavor at all,so go for it if you do not prefer to eat eggs

If you are using peanut butter to substitute the egg, try to use the one with 100% peanut butter that is without any added sugar or salt.

Replace 1 Egg with:

1 Tbsp ground flax seeds + 3 Tbsp warm water (mix and let sit for 5 minutes)

OR

1 Tbsp chia seeds + 1/3 cup water (mix and let sit for 10 minutes)

OR

1/2 a medium ripe banana, mashed

• Tip: cream with sugar

OR

3 tbsp peanut butter

OR

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

(This recipe requires 4 eggs so pick your choice of replacing eggs and add the quantity accordingly)

*While grating the zest of orange be careful to grate only the orange part of the fruit, I grated two big oranges in this recipe. And do not worry about the bitter taste of the zest, the moment you cook this zest with butter and sugar it will release its marvelous aroma which will give that unique freshness to the cake in every bite. Bitterness will just vanish completely.

*Other flavor options are 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder or 1 tbsp lemon zest.

*As mentioned earlier, this cake is also called as sheet cake or muffin cake in German. It is not baked typically in a round cake tin and topped with cream icing. Rather it is baked on a try and the icing is also added to the caking while it is baking. To get a clear picture about this please see the step by step video that I have prepared for y'all.

Did you make this recipe?

Let me know how it went! Comment below and share a picture on Instagram with #happinessizhomemade

❤ Priyanka