A few of you have asked for the recipe for the Very Almondy Almond Cake from Jess' Mother in Law's birthday cake. The cake uses Almond butter which is available in some supermarkets and in health food shops. I love nut butters and use them in buttercream for fondant fancies. You can make your own nut butters by lightly roasting nuts (skins removed) and then blending in a grinder with some flavourless oil and a tbsp of icing sugar to sweeten. Think almond flavoured peanut butter and you will be about there! Just delicious! To ice this cake, add a heaped tablespoon of the almond butter to a classic vanilla butter cream to give a buttery almond flavour.

Very Almondy Almond Cake
225g/8oz butter
225g/8oz caster sugar
1 heaped tbsp almond butter
4 large eggs
175g/6oz self raising flour, sifted
85g/3oz ground almonds
60g/2oz toasted flaked almonds
1 tsp almond essence
200ml buttermilk
4 tbsp Amaretto liquor

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180C/350F and grease and line two 8inch sandwich pans. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the butter, almond butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each egg is added. If the mixture starts to curdle add a spoonful of flour. Add the flour, ground and flaked almonds, almond essence and buttermilk and fold through gentle until all the flour is incorporated. Divide between the cake tins and bake for approximately 25 minutes until the cakes are golden, spring back when you press the center with your finger and a knife comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake. Heat the Amaretto liquor in a saucepan for 1 minute then drizzle over the cakes and allow to cool. Fill the cake with almond butter cream.