Julie Clark
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Almond Cream Cake
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Light, moist and velvety, this Almond Cream Cake has a homemade cooked, whipped frosting that pairs perfectly with the almond cake. Decorate the cake simply with sliced almonds.
If you’re looking at this cake and happen to remember the pinkalicious cake we shared, you’ll think that we’re in an almond kind of mood. It’s true. We do love our almonds.
We posted this cake recipe back in 2015, but I wanted to give this cake the credit that it was due and give it a little update for you.
About this Almond Cream Cake Recipe:
- Flavor: This is a white cake with a simple, sweet flavor. It has a slight taste of almond, but you could easily switch that out for vanilla if you’d like. The frosting and the cake are not overly sweet…which makes it dangerous to have around.
- Texture: Box mix cakes tend to be light and airy, but this homemade cake has more of a dense, velvety texture. It’s sturdy, but that doesn’t mean it is dry. It’s moist. And the smooth frosting will melt in your mouth.
Homemade White Cake
First of all, this almond cream cake is a completely homemade white cake. That means from scratch. No boxed mix. I love boxed cake mixes because they turn out perfectly nearly every time. But making a cake from scratch has always been this challenge that I’ve wanted to tackle.
In finding a delicious recipe for white cake (which happens to be my favorite flavor), we had several failures. I wanted a moist cake, but I wanted it to have a light crumb and be thick, but not heavy. We tossed aside several different attempts, but when I saw how this cake baked up? I knew this was it. For a homemade cake, this one beat the rest. Its velvety and moist. Can you see the texture in this photo?
Cake Flour or All-Purpose Flour
The recipe uses cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. All purpose flour has more protein in it (10-12 grams in all-purpose as opposed to 8 grams in cake flour), which forms gluten when you mix it. The less gluten there is, the more tender the cake is.
The starch in the cake flour helps to stabilize the cake. There’s more science behind the reasons you should use cake flour when baking a cake. Although I like learning the science behind baking and sharing it with you, sometimes it is just easier to let the experts explain it.
Whipped Frosting
The second special part of this cake is the frosting. Although we love our buttercream recipe, I was wanting to try something a little different for this cake. I’ve always loved whipped frosting because it is less sweet than many store-bought buttercreams.
I searched for a delicious whipped frosting and came across this recipe that got rave reviews. It’s a cooked flour frosting…something I had never tried before. This frosting takes a bit of time to make, but one spoonful and you may just be hooked.
How to Make Cooked Flour Frosting
When you make the frosting, it is important to follow the directions carefully.
- Cook the milk and flour together over medium heat until the mixture is very thick and resembles mashed potatoes. Don’t undercook this! It took about 10 minutes for me to get my mixture to this texture. Stir constantly while it is cooking so it doesn’t burn on the saucepan.
At this point you’ll probably be questioning how in the world this is going to taste good on your precious cake. Trust me. It will. Here are the steps after the flour & milk mixture is cooked.
- Let the flour and milk mixture cool to room temperature and add the almond flavor. You can speed up the process by placing the pan on ice if you’d like. It cools within minutes if you use this trick. Also, stir the frosting a few times while it is cooling. This will prevent a film from developing over your frosting. Stirring it and even placing plastic wrap right on top of the frosting will help to keep your frosting smooth.
- While this is cooling, take the granulated sugar and put it through your food processor to make the grains of sugar finer. Why do this? In the next step, you’ll cream the butter and sugar together until there is no graininess left. It will take less time if you process the sugar first. Or you can use a superfine sugar.
- Whip the butter and sugar together for about 5 minutes, then add the cooled flour mixture. Beat the mixture with the wire whisk attachment for a good 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. The mixture will go from having a separated look to coming together into a beautiful whipped cream. Just when you think it isn’t going to work it will start getting fluffy. Go ahead. Sneak a little taste. Just be warned that you may not be able to stop eating it.
We wanted a nice, thick layer of frosting on our almond cream cake. If you’d just like a thin layer of frosting you can halve the frosting recipe.
Decorate a Cake with Almonds
You can leave the almond cream cake a pure, snowy white if you’d like, or press some sliced almonds onto the sides. Arrange a few whole almonds on the top . Make it your own and be proud of it!
I’d say our first try at making cooked frosting was a success. What about you? Have you ever tried homemade whipped frosting or from-scratch cakes? I’d love it if you shared any other hints for homemade cakes or whipped frosting with us!
Recipe Variations
- This cake is excellent with a raspberry sauce filling inside.
- Instead of the cooked flour frosting, try a buttercream frosting or cream cheese frosting.
Next, try our dark chocolate cheesecake, almond raspberry bars, cranberry almond cookies, or almond apple bread pudding.
Almond Cream Cake
Light, moist and velvety, this Almond Cream Cake has a homemade cooked, whipped frosting that pairs perfectly with the almond cake. Top with sliced almonds.
Servings 15 servings
Prep Time 50 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 35 minutes
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup egg whites plus 3 tablespoons*
- 1 cup salted butter room temperature, 8 ounces
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 300 grams
- 3 cups cake flour* (345 grams) spooned & measured carefully
- 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 grams
- 2 teaspoons baking powder 6 grams
- 1 cup milk 2% milkfat, 8 ounces
- 1 teaspoon almond extract 4 grams
Frosting:
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 83 grams
- 2 cups 2% milk 16 ounces
- 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract 6 grams
- 2 cups granulated sugar 400 grams
- 2 cups salted butter softened, 1 pound
- Sliced almonds and whole almonds for decorating
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease and flour 2 8" round cake pans.
- Using a stand mixer, beat the egg whites with the whisk attachment until they are stiff and form peaks. This may take a minute or two. Pour the egg whites into another bowl and place them in the refrigerator until you're ready to add them to the batter. ¾ cup egg whites
- Using the same bowl that you used to beat the egg whites, place the softened butter in and cream for about 2 minutes (using the beater blade attachment) until it is white in appearance. 1 cup salted butter
- Add the sugar to the butter and beat until fluffy (about another 1-2 minutes). 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- In a small bowl, combine the flour (measured carefully*), salt and baking powder. Set aside. 3 cups cake flour*, ½ teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder
- In another bowl, combine the milk and almond extract. 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon almond extract
- Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture alternately with the milk.
- Add the stiffly beaten eggs to the cake batter. Fold the egg whites in gently. Do not over mix at this point. If you do, your cake will become more dense.
- Pour the cake batter equally into the prepared cake pans. Bake the cakes for 25-27 minutes or until the top bounces back when you touch it.
- Allow the cakes to cool for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges and remove them from the pans to a wire rack, allowing them to cool completely.
- While the layer cakes are cooling, prepare the frosting. In a saucepan, whisk the flour into the milk over medium-low heat until it thickens. Stir it constantly, lowering the heat to low if needed. The consistency should be very thick, like mashed potatoes. This step took about 12-15 minutes. ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 2 cups 2% milk
- Remove the pan from the heat and set the pan in a bowl of ice for 5-10 minutes to quicken the cooling process. The temperature of the mixture should be at room temperature. Stir in the almond extract. 1 ½ teaspoons almond extract
- If you have a food processor, process the white sugar for a minute or so so that the granules become finer. 2 cups granulated sugar
- While the mixture is cooling, cream together the butter and processed sugar using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment until light and fluffy. Do this for 5 minutes until the sugar is completely creamed and there is no graininess left. 2 cups salted butter
- Add the cooled flour mixture and beat it until it all combines and looks like whipped cream. This will take about another 3-5 minutes of beating. Keep scraping the sides of the bowl while the mixture is beating together so that everything gets well incorporated. Once the mixture has the texture of fluffy whipped cream, you are ready to ice the cake.
- Once the cakes are cool, place one cake on a cake plate. Spread frosting on top of that layer, then place the other cake on top of the frosted cake. Use the remainder of the frosting to frost the top and sides of the cake.
- Decorate the sides and top with sliced and whole almonds, as the picture shows, if desired. Sliced almonds and whole almonds for decorating
Video
Notes
- This is about 6-7 large egg whites. *Some are having problems with the cake being too dense. This can happen when you mistakenly add too much flour. When you measure the flour, spoon it from the flour container gently into the measuring cup. Do NOT pack it down at all. This technique will help you not put too much flour into the cake.
- If you only have unsalted butter you can use it, but add ¼ teaspoon salt.
Nutrition
Calories: 650kcal | Carbohydrates: 70g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 38g | Saturated Fat: 24g | Cholesterol: 102mg | Sodium: 444mg | Potassium: 178mg | Sugar: 49g | Vitamin A: 1215IU | Calcium: 94mg | Iron: 0.5mg
Do you want hunk I can add fresh strawberries or strawberry purée to the frosting? Or should I just add fresh sliced strawberries to the filling ?
Absolutely delicious! I made this cake for my friend’s birthday. She loves to bake as well so she’s pretty picky about her baked goods. She proclaimed this the best cake she’s ever had 😁! Worth the effort!
Can I use all-purpose flour instead of cake flour? I know you strongly advise against it, but what would happen if I did use it?
I am making this for my friend’s birthday tomorrow. This is my first time making a cooked frosting like this. Would youi recommend I make the cake and frost it today (and store at room temperature?) or just make the cake today and do the frosting tomorrow?
I have made this before and it was so good! I’m making it again for my son’s birthday but I’m going to try vanilla instead of almond. My question is how far in advance can I make the frosting and how should I store it?
Tastes amazing! My question is do I need to refrigerate it if serving the next day?
Love you cinnamon bun recipe and would like to make this, My husband is diabetic can I make this with Splenda
Just made this for the first time. Hubby loves white cake and almonds and I prefer frosting without confectioners sugar, so this recipe looked like win win win to me. Took me 3 hours start to finish as well. Used cake flour and sifted it in as it was added – I think that helped make it smoother. The cake turned out phenomenal. The icing was a bit too rich for our taste. I could really only taste the butter and a hint of gritty sugar (I did use the food processor). Would it be better to just use fine… Read more »
Love this cake, however the frosting was so gritty even after processing. Perhaps because I use organic cane sugar.
I just made this cake for the first time today and it turned out absolutely perfect!!!! I don’t know why people are saying it came out dense, as my cake is so light and fluffy!!!! Will definitely make again 🙂
Extremely dense cake and I weighed the flour and did my best to gently fold but the batter was so thick it was difficult:(. Won’t be making this recipe again
Would the frosting be thick enough to make rosettes with?
I was excited to make this cake but sadly, it wasn’t a winner for us. I realized the steps are a bit out of order which added time and confusion to the process. I weighed the flour to be accurate so I didn’t end up with a dense cake (minimizing the amount of folding/stirring of the whites will ensure less density too). I also cut the frosting recipe in half based on a comment referencing a comment that seems to be missing. The cake itself unfortunately was dry and had a tight, small crumb. The frosting (I cut the sugar… Read more »
How would this frosting work for sugar cookies? I’m looking for something new to try.
Can I make this 2 days in advance?