Almond cake with chocolate fondue buttons

This cake was like my room , where the décor was centered around my  red sofa and every other furniture was set  up  around it.  The  cake was created around two ingredients : homemade almond meal and leftover chocolate fondue buttons.

My jar of blanched almond was from  a ' blanching' experiment. I did not have an end in mind and they laid unused in the pantry since then, with the 'danger' of going rancid had it not been for this cake. To take a step further, I made almond meal out of it, first by chopping  the nuts in a food processor and then grinding it to fine flour in my handy coffee grinder.  The end result was rather impressive and judging from the fine texture, no one would have figured that it was not store bought.

The chocolate buttons were some leftovers from a fondue party. Since it would be a long time before the next fondue party, I had to find a use for them. I also  liked the idea of using the  big buttons to provide  visual interest, polka-dotting the yellow based cake throughout.

Makes 3 medium sized cakes.

Ingredients :

300g plain flour

70g ground almond ( meal )

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp pink salt

250g butter, cubed and softened

140g castor sugar

4 medium  eggs

250 ml milk

1 cup chocolate fondue buttons

Method :

Preheat oven to 170C.

Prepare 3 medium sized aluminum trays, greased and dusted. Set aside.

Combine dry ingredients of flour, almond meal, baking powder, salt. Mix well.

In a mixing bowl, whisk butter until it is broken up and fluffy. Whisk in sugar, about 3 minutes, until pale and airy.

Whisk in eggs, one at a time. It should yield a light batter.

In 4 batches, add flours alternating with milk.

Stir in chocolate fondue buttons.

Divide batter to 3 batches and transfer to the 3 prepared trays.

Bake at 170C for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is firm to the touch.

Cool on a rack. This cake tastes best when eaten slightly warm.