Coconut Almond Cake

This cake happens to be gluten free, but that's not the only merit of it's worth. It's moist, nutty and appropriate for all kinds of occasions. I've served this for dessert, with afternoon tea, and even nibbled a slice for breakfast with coffee and no shame. The bulk of the base is whole raw almonds, so you're getting a nice dose of healthy unsaturated fats, fiber and phytonutrients. Though handy to keep up your sleeve for those with dietary restrictions, gluten tolerant folks will equally devour this with no sense of white flour depravation whatsoever.

Recipe adapted from Bob's Red Mill

INGREDIENTS

170g (3/4 cup) butter 200g (1 cup) sugar 3 eggs 120ml (1/2 cup) milk 1 tsp vanilla 215g (1 1/2 cups) whole raw almonds, finely ground 56g (1/2 cup) coconut flour 2 tsp baking powder

METHOD

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Using the paddle attachment on your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until incorporated. Add milk and vanilla and beat until incorporated. In a separate bowl, whisk together the ground almonds, coconut flour, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix thoroughly. Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. The cake should be golden brown and starting to pull away from the sides. Allow to rest in the pan for 10 minutes before serving. I like to use a springform pan for this so I can easily pop the cake out when it's done, and 9" parchment rounds to avoid having to cut the paper to fit.

A word on ingredients:

BUTTER

Butter is butter, right? Wrong. Not all butter is created equal. By law in the United States, all butters must be at least 80% butterfat, with the remaining 18% being water and 1-2% milk solids. European style butter has a higher butterfat percentage (82-86%) and less water, resulting in a richer taste and softer texture. I strongly prefer european style butter for all of my baking needs. Straus organic unsalted is my butter of choice with an impressive 85% butterfat content. Named “One of the Top Premium Butters in America” by Food & Wine magazine, the extremely low moisture of their butter results in baked goods that rise higher and brown more evenly. If you're unable to find this particular variety, snag a brick of trusty Kerrygold pure Irish butter, which has a respectable butterfat content of 82% and proves to be far less elusive than Straus.

ALMONDS

Almonds are perishable, and even moreso when ground. Grinding increases the surface area and exposes delicate oils to more rapid oxygenation, so almond flour goes rancid quickly on the shelf if you don't use it fast enough. For this reason, and also simply because I always keep whole raw almonds in my pantry, I prefer to grind them in a food processor just before use rather than purchase pre-made almond flour. All you have to do is measure out 215g (1 1/2 cups) whole almonds, and process them using the blade attachment of a food processor. Start with a few quick pulses, then when they are more broken up you can let it run. They will go from course pieces like that of gravel, to progressively more fine and uniform like sand. Make sure to stop before the almonds turn into paste. At that point you would have almond butter, which is not what we want here, but certainly a good thing to know how to make.

VANILLA

Vanilla costs an absolute fortune these days. In today's market, it's worth more by weight than silver. Complex pollination, extreme weather, theft, and the rise of the "all natural" food movement have contributed to the hefty price tag.

My dear friend and fellow avid baker Anjie Alleman introduced me to Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Bean paste many years ago. We (as good friends do on a Saturday afternoon) took a croissant workshop at Sur La Table in downtown Salt Lake City. We learned about lamination in the pastry world, aka the secret to that characteristic flakiness that makes a croissant so dang special. It's a sequence of repeated folding and rolling that creates dozens of thin layers of dough separated by butter.

While shopping around the store after the class she mentioned she had run out of vanilla and ought to grab some. It was then that I was introduced to a pantry staple I can no longer live without: Nielsen Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Bean Paste. Anjie preferred the vanilla bean paste over extract because those lovely little flecks of vanilla bean are visible in the finished product. The texture is thick like honey rather than liquid, and the flavor is incredibly intense. I remember being astonished that she single-handedly produced enough baked goods to warrant buying a 32 oz bottle at a whopping $49.95. I left empty handed, trusting her recommendation, but not yet ready to take the plunge.

Fast forward to modern times and I have plowed through many a jumbo bottle of pure vanilla bean paste, despite it ringing up triple the charge of the good old days. With a shelf life of several years, however, if you frequently use vanilla in your baked goods and beverages, buying in bulk is the way to go. You will get the most bang for your buck and never risk the fret of a last-minute vanilla shortage crisis, though 8 oz and 4 oz bottles are also available. Worlds away from imitation vanilla, a step up from genuine vanilla extract, and a serious contender with whole vanilla bean, if you haven't tried this stuff you will be amazed at the difference. Obviously if you can afford to use whole vanilla beans all the time you are winning at life and I support you. But at roughly $10 a piece they are precious commodity and quite rare in this household, so I've found my sweet spot with vanilla bean paste.

Williams Sonoma Goldtouch® Leakproof Springform Cake Pan