Frangipane Cake

Dear readers,

As promised in my previous post, I'll give you a really easy recipe for frangipane cake.

Some people put a little cherry on top.

Another name is almond-paste cake. This cake or pie is known in Belgium, France, Germany and The Netherlands. It comes from a cake we eat to celebrate the arrival of the three saints when Jesus Christ was born. Traditionally you hide a bean or a little saint in the cake batter. Who finds the bean can wear the crown. But because this is such a delicious batter, people started making it more often and put a twist to it. In a frangipane cake there's some apricot jam on the bottom and some glaze on the top. Those things are not in the three saints cake.

Now let's make it! I'll always put ounces behind the grams so everybody can make this.

Ingredients (+/- 5 persons)
For the frangipane:
200 gr (7.05 oz) self raising flour
200 gr (7.05 oz) sugar
2 eggs
80 gr (2.81 oz) almond powder
few drops of almond essence
130 gr (4.59 oz) butter
apricot jam
ready-made puff pastry (rolled up, although in Belgium it's like that)

For the glaze:
150 gr (5.29 pz) powder sugar
3 tbs water

Preparation
Before you start you need to preheat you oven to 190°C or 374°F. The baking process takes approximately 45 minutes and the preparation about 10 minutes.

You're going to need a bowl to mix everything in and a mixer off course. I'm using a tin like in the picture.

First you have to beat the butter to a creamy mass. Then you add the eggs, sugar and the almond extract and you beat for another five minutes. Sift the flower and the almond powder while adding it while beating.

Instead of making one big one, you can always
make a few little ones per person.

Now you can put the puff pastry in the tin (make sure you grease it a little bit). You have to puncture some holes in the pastry with a fork.
After you done this, you smear the jam on the bottom. You can choose how much you use, a thick layer or a thin layer. You pour your almond batter on top of the jam.
Normally the pastry will be a little bigger than the tin so you cut off what's too much. You use these leftovers and put them crosswise on top of the batter, like in the picture.

Now you're cake or pie is ready to go into the oven for 45 minutes on 190°C or 374°F. Before taking your cake out of the oven, puncture with a knife to see if any batter sticks to it. If it does, the cake needs 5 minutes more. If your knife comes out clean, you can take it out and let it cool down.

When the frangipane is cooled down, we can finish it off with some extra sweetness. Something to make your cake shine, is to put a little bit jam and let it melt in the microwave. You take a brush and put a very thin layer of jam on your cake. But that's something you don't have to do, it makes it sticky and extra sweet so you choose.
What you do have to do is put some glaze on top of it. You add water little by little to the powder sugar while stirring it. When the glaze is done, you put it on the cake, a big circle in the middle or everywhere. You can also put some almond flakes on top to finish it off!

Off course you can always change some ingredients according to your taste. Some people don't add the jam or add another fruit. It's really up to you to experiment a little, that is if you're a good cook.

I really hope you enjoy this delicious cake/pie! Please do let me know if it worked and you can always show me yours!

This is how mine came out. I tried two different types of glaze. I mixed two different amounts of water to the powder sugar. You do it how you like, I love both :-)

Love,
Sinitta