Bake Fest Friday ‘How To Make Toasted Almond Layered Cream Fingers’ at Cherry Menlove

What you will need for this recipe: For the sponge part of the cake:

4 medium free range eggs

100g caster/superfine sugar

75g self raising flour

50g ground almonds

1 teaspoon of good quality almond essence

30g almond flakes

For the icing:

3 egg whites

500g caster/superfine sugar

Pinch of salt

Pinch of Cream of Tartar

Quarter of a teaspoon of good quality almond essence

It’s Friday & therefore time for another ‘Bake Fest Friday’ at Cherry Menlove

Toasted Almond Layered Cream Fingers
I am loving the process of creating posts for Bake Fest Friday. As they are once a fortnight (hopefully once a week in the future) I feel that we can really go to town with the recipes that are chosen. The main thought behind it is that it’s ’something sweet for the weekend’ a treat to enjoy and lick off of your fingers when you’re done. A terribly gooey gift from me to you.

Today’s recipe is no exception. As you can see from the pictures it’s so sweet and so gooey that it almost falls apart as you start to eat it. The wonderful, almond flavoured slices sliding around the plate on a bed of almond cream. It’s good. Not only because it’s BAD for you but because it’s SO BAD for you that you’ll only want one slice……in theory!!!!!!!

Makes 8 - 10 fingers and you can find a weight conversion chart here!

Almond Layered Cream Fingers 2 - Cherry Menlove

How do you make it -

Heat the oven to 190c

Whisk together the eggs and sugar & then sift in the flour and ground almonds. Beat all of these ingredients together.
Grease and line a 10×14 inch baking pan, (you also need to grease the paper to make it easier to detach the cake once baked) and pour mixture evenly over the base of the pan.
Place on centre shelf of oven and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and turn out onto a flat baking tray and leave to cool. When cool cut the cake into three long, even, rectangular pieces and set to one side.
Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan over a low heat for 3-4 minutes and set aside.
Put all the ingredients for the icing into a large mixing bowl and place it on top of a large saucepan of boiling water over a low heat. Whisk ingredients together as they heat and soften until the mixture thickens. Ideally it is advisable to use an electric hand held mixer for this, but if you do not have one you can whisk the ingredients together manually, making sure that you whip air into the mixture, and then transfer to your food mixer for the final couple of minutes until the mixture thickens. If you don’t have any electrical mixing equipment this is a great workout for your biceps and should take about 10-15 mins!!
With a pallet knife spread the icing over the first layer of cake and sprinkle with some of the toasted almonds. Repeat with second layer and sandwich together. Once the third and final layer has been added cover the entire cake with the icing, smoothing with the pallet knife along the sides and ends and finally sprinkle the top with more almonds.
Place in fridge for 1 hour. Slice into fingers when chilled and enjoy.

Yum!

I love the look of layered cakes and hope to be baking more in the coming months. I like the sensation of cutting into something and having the centre revealed to me. Not quite knowing what it’ll all look like inside.

So, I’m off for the weekend. It’s quite possible that something rather surreal may be happening today and if it does I’ll let you know on Monday. Occasionally events happen at such a pace and major decisions are made so quickly that one barely has time to think about any of it before it happens. I like it like this and wouldn’t have it any other way……it still doesn’t make it any less surreal, mind!

Stay safe and know that I appreciate every single visitor to this site of mine. I’m so encouraged by seeing all you pop by and I wish each and every one of you a very safe and happy weekend.

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