Leite's Flourless Almond Cake

By stancec44

This flourless almond cake is French and flavorful and gluten-free through and through, crisp and crunchy on the outside, dense and chewy on the inside. Perfect for Passover. Exceptionally sweet, moist, and dense, almost more like a giant almond macaroon or a marzipan confection of some sort, buttery and almond and chewy.” That’s how the author describes this flourless almond cake. That pretty much sums it up. Unlike many gluten-free cakes, this one is quite crisp and crunchy on the outside, dense and moist and chewy on the inside. It’s also known as amandier or gâteau de Visan, after the Provençal village where it originated. A cup of coffee or strongly brewed tea nicely offsets the cake’s not-so-subtle-yet-still-lovely sweetness. Originally published April 7, 2016.–Renee Schettler Rossi

*How To Make This Flourless Almond Cake Kosher For Passover
This flourless almond cake can easily be made kosher for Passover by paying careful attention to the ingredients. Most conventional confectioners’ sugar contains cornstarch, which isn’t kosher for Passover. However, many brands of organic confectioners’ sugars instead contain tapioca starch. Check the ingredients list to be certain. You’ll also need to substitute the seeds from a vanilla bean for the vanilla extract. Depending on how much you fancy the flavor of vanilla, you can use anywhere from 1 inch of a vanilla bean to 1/4 the entire vanilla bean in this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons ground almonds (almond flour), sifted
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar*
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 oz), melted and cooled, plus more for the pan
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract*

Details

Servings 1
Preparation time 15mins
Cooking time 50mins
Adapted from leitesculinaria.com

Preparation

Step 1

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Line a 6-inch cake pan with parchment paper cut to fit and generously butter the bottom and sides of the pan.

2. In a large bowl, combine the ground almonds, salt, confectioners’ sugar, and granulated sugar. Add the beaten egg, melted butter, and vanilla extract to the dry ingredients. Mix until smooth. The batter should be quite thick. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan and smooth the top.

3. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Carefully turn the cake out of the pan onto a wire rack and let it cool completely. Wrap in plastic wrap until serving. The almond cake will keep in an airtight container, or well wrapped in plastic wrap, for several days, though it’s unlikely that anyone will resist for that long.

FLOURLESS ALMOND CAKE VARIATIONS
Feel free to vary the recipe with lemon or lime zest in place of the vanilla or even a tablespoon of orange flower water instead.