Certifiably Awesome Coffee Almond cake

Dedicated to roaring laughter, silly giggles, knowing smiles and my beautiful girlfriends!

Isn't spending some time with you old friends just the best?! And specially if its a girl's night! I was thrilled beyond words! I had a chance to re-connect with my gal pals sans their spouses, just like old times! Just to clarify though, I love all their spouses as well, but we all know, girls need some alone time just to be able to be silly and gossip (YES!!!) and share and listen and mostly be silly. And our girl's night was yesterday. We decided to stay in, no drinks, so we all were sober and could indulge in all the talking and listening that we could cram in one night. A night is a relative term. It roughly translates to 8-9 hours which is more than plenty of time to sleep, but if you're with your BFFs, its barely any time! We were celebrating the visit of a dear friend S who had come back to town after getting married. I've known S for more than 6 years now and the two things that stand out when I think about her is her love of food and her love for dance. I could atleast do something for her in the food department! 

Yesterday, I decided to bake a cake! And not just any cake, but a coffee almond cake (just so we had the energy to stay up all night and the coffee would give us a boost!) You can also make this yummy cake. Its just so darn easy. Pop everything in a food processor, blitz a few times, pour the mix in your desired moulds, bake and you're done! Easy peasy...Just follow the recipe! 

Serves: 6-8

Complexity: ***

Time: 45 mins

You'll need

1 1/2 cups All purpose flour/ maida

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup cream/ 1 stick unsalted butter

1 1/4 tbsp baking powder

1/2 cup warm milk

2 tsp vanilla extract, essence (if using paste, about 1 tsp should be enough)

1 cup almond slivers + few blanched whole almonds to decorate

3 tbsp coffee powder (more if you want it really strong)

Pinch of love

Method

Preheat oven at 180C or 250F. Line your moulds with parchment paper or brush with oil and set aside.

Cut your almonds and have your slivers ready. 

In the food processor, add the sugar and cream/butter and whisk until fluffy. Add the eggs, be careful not to get the shells in. Whisk till it becomes pale yellow and a little frothy. Now add the milk and vanilla extract to it and whisk again till the mix is smooth and even. In a separate bowl, combine the flour with baking powder and mix so the baking powder is evenly spread throughout. Add this to the food processor along with love, coffee powder and almond slivers. If you like, you could add espresso instead of powder, but I wanted the cake to have flicks of coffee all over so I used powder. 

Blitz it a few times till the ingredients are well combined. Do not over mix. Take a spatula to clean off the sides and blitz or pulse a couple more times. The batter should be thick and glossy. Pour the batter into the lined moulds. I took half the batter to make cup cakes and half to make a round cake. 

Don't you just love the dark brown specks of coffee powder peeking through the batter?!? :)

Pop it into the oven for around 20 minutes for the cup cakes and 30 minutes for the round cake. After about 10 minutes of the cupcakes being in the oven, I topped them off with blanched whole almonds so they don't sink but are set on the cupcakes. Remember not to fill the cupcakes till the top, just till 3/4 of the mould. 

{**Note: I made a mistake and placed the almonds on top of the cup cake batter in the beginning even before they were half cooked, so they sunk in. I then added almonds again after 10 minutes of them being baked. Those survived!} 

To test, insert a toothpick and if it comes out clean, the cake is done. Take it out of the oven and rest for 10-15 minutes and then remove from molds.

Add a dusting of icing sugar if you feel like it. I didn't! They looked pretty with the almonds on top. Serve how you like, with or without tea/ coffee/ icecream/ frosting. They are absolutely moist and delicious! Give it a try and don't forget to share with your loved ones and Indulge! :))