Cinnamon almond cake

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Almond cinnamon cake

Almond cinnamon cake

It sometimes seems as though Thanksgiving has become a celebration of having too much. It’s funny that it’s a uniquely American holiday, because it seems like such a singularly American characteristic to want more than we need. Too much is never enough. We don’t just eat lots of good food, we eat till we feel ill, and then we set out that very night to buy lots of things we don’t need just because they’re cheaper than they were the day before. It’s madness, I tell you! Everything feels very off-kilter sometimes: in a world with so much poverty and hunger, we should celebrate because we have enough, we should celebrate balance and sharing, and plenty for everyone. We should remember what it feels like to be hungry, to have that keen feeling of anticipation, and we should recognize when we’ve had enough, when we’re sated. And we should be thankful for being full of hope and love and affection and kindness, because these things we truly can’t have too much of. And that’s quite enough of my Sunday preaching! In this spirit, today’s Sunday interactive playlist is on the subject of feeling full and feeling hungry. We could be talking about food, or emotion, or ambition, or any other thing.
Almond & cinnamon cake

Almond & cinnamon cake

Well, I make a lot of cakes, and this is one of my favorite I’ve ever made. It has a dense pleasant quality, almost like shortbread, and the combination of cinnamon and almond is a perfect one. It has a soft cakey part topped with a sort of crumble with lots of bittersweet chocolate chips in it. Nice with coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon, and wine after dinner.

Here’s a link to the interactive playlist. Add what you like or leave a note in the comments and I’ll try to add it through the week.

1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
dash salt
1 t cinnamon
1 t baking powder
1 egg
2 t vanilla
6 T butter, just melted

TOPPING

3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 T cold butter
1/2 cup sliced almonds
pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly butter a cake pan.

Put the almonds and sugar in the food processor and process until quite smooth. Ad the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder, process until combined.

Add the egg, vanilla and melted butter. You should have a thick, smooth batter. Pour this into your prepared pan and smooth it out.

In the same food processor, (you don’t need to clean it) combine the topping ingredients, and process very briefly till everything is just slightly ground. Sprinkle this mixture over the top of the cake.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until the cake is golden and firm to the touch. Let cool, slice and eat.

6 thoughts on “Cinnamon almond cake”

  1. This sounds quite lovely, and because of the high nut content it might be something I can adapt to low carb (two in my family are diabetic). I actually have some almond flour on hand and would like to give this a try…do you know how much 1 cup of sliced almonds weighs (either in grams or oz)? Thanks so much.

    Reply ↓

    • I think it’s about 100 grams or about 3.6 ounces. You could try to use almond flour and ground almonds instead of regular flour. I’m not sure about the sugar, though…I don’t know what you could substitute for that. You’re probably more familiar than I am with that kind of thing!

      Thanks,

      Claire

      Reply ↓

      • Thank you for that information. I am going to use a combination of liquid Stevia and Swerve, a sweetener that is popular on the healthier low carb blogs, and seems to work well in anything I have tried so far. The only downside to erythritol, which is mostly what Swerve is composed of, is that it can leave a cooling sensation in the mouth, but that is mitigated by using stevia in concert. I need to make a cake on Wednesday, and I just remembered that I had wanted to try your hazelnut cake…I think it can be adapted….so this one will wait in the queue until I next need a dessert.

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