Birthdays

Two weekends ago we celebrated my husband’s and son’s birthdays - hence it was a big baking weekend for me. I made a strawberry almond cake for my husband and my son wanted his birthday cake to be an interpretation of the banana cream pie. I also made a 14th century Italian dessert for my son’s English class project on Romeo and Juliet – we found a recipe for a cinnamon custard tart that sort of worked – well it did not look pretty but tasted quite good.

Strawberry Almond Cake

This is a very light cake - I adapted the recipe from the Encyclopedia of Desserts by Emma Codrington and Michael Raffael. I use more ground almonds,and half the amount of sugar. It is a great cake for people who are watching the amount of refined carbs they consume but love a sweet treat.

4 oz butter - 1 stick
2 oz sugar
2 eggs lightly beaten
4 oz flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 oz ground almonds
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 pint heavy cream whipped with 1 tsp powdered sugar
1 pint strawberries - sliced

Grease two 7 inch cake pans. Heat oven to 350F. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the 2 eggs. Add in the flour and almonds and fold into the butter mixture. Divide the mixture into the 2 pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes, cool the cakes.
Sandwich the cakes together with half the whipped cream and strawberries. Decorate the top of the cake with remaining cream and strawberries.