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Sunday, October 9, 2011

ABC - Frangipane Ripple Chocolate Pound Cake

Happy to see some sort of frangipane ripple! :o)
Oh boy, I'm a week late for my own baking group, the Avid Baker's Challenge. As the administrator I'm definitely not setting the right example with this post but what can I say... life happens and then priorities need to be revised. Now onto this month's baking project: Frangipane Ripple Chocolate Pound Cake which is chosen by fellow ABC-er Lola of Lola's Artistic Endeavors. I love almonds and I love chocolate, so I was very much looking forward to this cake. I had leftover homemade almond paste in the freezer from when I made the Neapolitan Bars (I doubled the almond paste recipe so I'd have extra in case I needed it later).



This pound cake was a snap to make. I made half a recipe and used a smaller Bundt pan which I purchased for this purpose. One advantage of being late is seeing everyone else's ABC entry. Some had complained about the frangipane disappearing into the cake after baking. To avoid that problem, I decided to keep my frangipane on the "thick" side and so I cut the butter amount in half which kept it from being runny and thin. I didn't even need to refrigerate it (because it was thick already) but for good measure, I did anyway. When the batter was ready, I scooped the frangipane into a ziplock bag and piped it in between the layers of batter.

It took 53 minutes to bake.

You can see some of the frangipane peeking through!
Bon appetit!

Final thoughts/tips:
  • Hubby hasn't had a chance to try this cake yet, but I did (it was hard to wait until the next day to see if the frangipane rippled or not, ha ha). I'm pleased that it did (to a certain degree), but I definitely got 2 visible layers of frangipane.
  • The cake is very moist and chocolatey. The frangipane added a very pleasant (but subtle) almond flavor. I ate it plain but wouldn't mind a chocolate glaze for a little bit more chocolatey goodness (hubby would probably disagree with that as he's not a huge chocolate fan). What I enjoyed most about this cake had a light/soft crumb and wasn't super dense like a typical pound cake is. 
  • Modifications (very few this time): cut the butter amount for the frangipan in half, and added a dash of salt to the frangipane. To the cake batter I added 1 tsp of Medaglia d'Oro espresso powder (remember, I made half the recipe, so for the whole recipe you'd need 2 tsp of espresso powder).
  • Thanks for a great recipe selection, Lola.
  • Don't forget to check out this month's ABC blog roll.

6 comments:

  1. LOL! Hanaa..well, like i say, better late than never! :) My frangipane didn't disappear but i think it kind of sink to the bottom though, next time i'm going to add it randomly all over instead of layer by layer. Great choice to this cake, thanks Lola for picking this recipe! This is now my few found recipe/cake! Loving this cake! Just under 2 days and the huge cake is almost gone!

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  2. Mmmm... sounds really wonderful, Hanaa. I love frangipane, and I love the layers it creates in this cake. Bravo.

    :)
    ButterYum

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  3. I love frangipane . And this looks so tempting . :)

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  4. Can you believe I had this one made (plus the strawberry one) already on 9 September? All I had to do is post it or rather locate the micro SD card that has the pics on it. (It's called a micro for a reason no?)

    My ripples disappeared as well, plus I underbaked the cake and guess what? People got seconds..and thirds... asking me for the recipe. They thought it was supposed to be so moist haha.

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  5. A wonderful cake! I love those frangipane ripples.

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  6. Thank you all for your sweet comments :o)

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