One of my German friends told me this was her favorite cake, and this is my first attempt at making it with her in mind.
I started my journey by asking her how her granny would make it, because in my research there are two ways to prepare the batter for this cake. One is a danish-like yeast dough, the other is more of the baking powder base cake or sponge. Her preference was the baking powder cake. My husband the ex-baker mentioned to me that he only knows this cake with yeast, so that might be my next attempt to see which one is my favorite.
Elements
The Cake
Thickened Custard
Sliced Almonds and Carmel topping
The Cake
Pre-heat the oven @ 200 C
3 large whole eggs
1 Cup caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup corn starch
4 tbsp melted butter
milk
Using the highest mix setting on your mixer, combine the Eggs,sugar and Salt – this should take you about 10 minutes.
Sift your flours together and fold in the egg mixture until the flours combine with the egg mixture to form a batter and then start mixing using you mixer again.
Add your cooled melted butter and mix till fully incorporated, and smooth and creamy batter is formed. if the batter looks too much like a paste due to the grit of your almond meal, add milk. There’s no exact number for the milk, but add small amounts till the batter is creamy and not like a paste.
I used a cast iron pan, but you can use any mid-sized round pan that you have, I based it with butter, pour your batter into your pan.
Cover the batter with Sliced almonds.
Turn the oven down to 180 C and place pan in the oven for 40 minutes:
The Custard
I used the custard from the box mix. using the same amount of milk as recommended on the box, but doubling the powder to create a thicker texture. I also used 4 tbsp of thicken cream to keep this mixture rich and spreadable. Once this was ready I cover the custard with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming on the top and placed in the fridge to cool.
The resultant was a thick custard with a slight jelly texture.
The Caramel Topping
4 tbsp butter
1/2 cup sugar
combine these in a pot over heat. This will be poured over the cake while it’s still warm.
Once the cake was out of the oven and while still hot/warm, pour the caramel over the almond covered top of the cake.
you might ask why I’m doing this at this stage, and the only reason is that the cake must still be warm when pouring warm liquids over it. other wise it would seem a better idea to do this once you slit the cake in half. This caramel sets very firmly to the top of the cake once it’s cool, so it’s still manageable.
once the cake is cooled, remove from it’s pan carefully and cut it in half, I used a bread knife, separating the top layer from the bottom layer. Get your cold custard from the fridge, mix it around a bit to loosen it up, it would look like jello; spread it on the bottom layer of the cake. Place the top layer over with the almond side up.
Voir la!
You will end up with a layer of cake, a firm layer of custard and the layer of cake with the almonds on top
Best served cold.
Bon Manger! or Guten Appetit!
Grande Mangeur 