Scandinavian Gold Cake

By norsegal8

Hilda Strandberg, grandmother of our test kitchen director Sue Gray, immigrated to America from Sweden. This recipe came with her, and was a family staple at Christmastime. After Hilda's husband perished in the flu epidemic of 1918, she was faced with supporting three growing children during the Depression. Luckily she secured work in the kitchen of a local country club, and as she was always proud to say, "My kids may not have had the best of clothing, but they never went hungry!"

Ingredients

• Cake
• 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) butter
• 1 1/3 cups (9 1/4 ounces) sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract or 3 drops bitter almond oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract OR Princess Cake and Cookie Flavoring
• 1 cup (3 1/2 ounces) toasted almond flour*
• 1 1/2 cups (6 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 6 large eggs, room temperature
• Glaze
• 2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) confectioners' sugar or glazing sugar
• 1/4 cup (2 ounces) heavy cream or evaporated milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract OR Princess Cake and Cookie Flavoring
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract or 1 drop bitter almond oil

Details

Servings 20

Preparation

Step 1

*We prefer the nutty taste of toasted, but use regular almond flour if you prefer.

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan or a 12-cup bundt-style pan.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until it's soft. Add the sugar, salt, baking powder and flavorings. Beat them together until well-blended.

Add the flours and mix; the mixture will be crumbly. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl after each addition. The batter will become fluffy after the third or fourth egg has been added.

Scrape the batter into the pan, and level it with a spatula. Bake the cake for 1 hour (or longer), until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, and the edges pull away from the pan.

Remove the cake from the oven, and place it on a rack to cool. Turn it out of the pan after about 10 minutes to cool completely.

Glaze: Mix all of the glaze ingredients together, adding a bit of water if needed to make it spreadable.

Use a spatula to spread it over the top of the cake. Let the glaze set for a few minutes before serving. Yield: 1 cake, 20 to 22 slices.

Note: If you want to skip the glaze (though we don't recommend this -- the glaze is yummy!), simply sift confectioners' sugar atop the cake.