Lovely Almond Cake

Lovely almond-y cake

This is the very lovely and fairly simple Almond Cake I made for a friend's birthday get together.

My friend jokingly asked if I could bring a cake....and I said, "SURE I CAN!   What do you want?"  He said whatever kind of cake it is it should have NO gobs of frosting... and left it up to me to find the right recipe.  I know it may seem strange to some of you that there are people out there that hate dislike  frosting....but I assure you they do exist!

I'll admit I was a bit stumped on a nice, flavorful cake that didn't require gobs of yummy frosting to make it better.  Actually, that's not true at all!  I know of several - I just had trouble choosing which one to make!

I asked my friends on Facebook for cake ideas and one of them told me about this awesome almond cake recipe they found online.  After reading the recipe (it calls for almond paste!  It's gotta be good if it calls for almond paste, right???) I decided that this was THE ONE to try.

Which one?

This one--> David Lebovitz's recipe for almond cake.  
(I'm not going to rewrite his recipe since his instructions are awesome)

I followed the recipe exactly (which is something I almost NEVER do) and it turned out beautifully!  After the cake had cooled Mark split the cake in half and I spread a layer of red currant jelly that I'd warmed up in a small pot (to make it easier to spread) in the middle.  Then I carefully placed the top half back on and spread more of that warmed up red currant jelly on top, sprinkled some toasted almond slices on top of that and -finally (whew!)- dusted the top with powdered sugar.

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Silly me....I was nervous about this cake.  I was worried it'd be too sweet for my German friends.  I was afraid it wouldn't be well received.  Thankfully, I was WRONG!  (sometimes it's good to be wrong!)  Don't get me wrong- this is definitely a sweet cake but it's an excellent sweet cake!  I'm definitely making it again and I hope you'll give it a try too!