Almond extract lends the most wonderfully rich, nutty, and sweetly perfumed flavor to anything it touches. And it touched this unique cake plenty in the three tablespoons I used. French almond cakes are typically rectangular little cakes that have a firm, crusty exterior and a moist, soft interior. They’re also known as financiers because traditionally they look like gold bars. But since no one I know has financier molds to make individual cakes, one 9-inch cake is my solution. It’s one of the easiest and fastest cakes I’ve ever made, and goes from cupboard to pan to oven in less than five minutes. Just one bowl and a whisk is all you need.
French almond cakes are typically made without chemical leaveners such as baking powder or soda, and rely only on eggs for lift. This creates a dense and moist cake, with an interior that resembles the interior of Cookie Bars. Some recipes use almond meal or almond flour, but I didn’t want to run the risk of weighing down the leavener-less cake with nut-based flour and used trusty all-purpose. I don’t like actual nuts in baked goods, but extracts are fair game. Biting into nuts in a soft cookie or tender piece of cake is as bad as biting into eggshells. Crunchy, they catch you off guard, and just don’t belong. So I’m especially grateful for almond extract to give this cake all the almond flavor it has going.
If you’ve never bought almond extract, it’s sold near the vanilla extract in the grocery store. At my grocery store, a one-ounce bottle of store-brand real almond extract was $2.99. Imitation almond extract was also $2.99, so I went with real and happily used almost half the little bottle in the recipe and it’s the star of the show. The cake is bursting at the seams with sweet almond flavor. Two tablespoons of extract are used in the cake batter, and one tablespoon in the glaze. I wanted to make sure I knew this was an almond cake, not a cake masquerading as one, and used the extract liberally.
It’s traditional to top the cake with jam or slivered almonds, and I used apricot-peach jam mixed with cream cheese, draped over the top. I could happily smear that mixture on everything I see. The tang of the cream cheese cuts some of the sweetness from the jam. My husband especially loved this unique little cake. It reminds me of a giant chewy sugar or snickerdoodle cookie infused with almond, and baked in a cake pan.
It has chewy edges like a blondie bar or snickerdoodle cookie bar, while the interior is soft, dense, rich, and moist. While it was baking, my husband came out of his office and asked me what that heavenly smell was. Almond extract is like sweet perfume that permeates the air in the most lovely way.
It’s sweet, light, and feels like spring. I think it would be perfect for a brunch, shower, or any time that you need a smaller-sized, fast, and very easy little cake. And I really want to eat eat the glaze by the spoonful, especially the little chunks of apricot that peek through.
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Have you tried French almond cake or financiers before? Almond extract? Nuts in desserts? I’ve never been to France or had the real thing, but I’d be happy to go on a taste-testing trip in the name of field research as soon as someone wants to buy my airline ticket.
