Torta De Cielo (Mexican Almond Cake)

With Cinco de Mayo coming up, I've been seeing recipes for this traditional Mexican cake popping up on Pinterest and various food blogs. Based on the original recipe by Diana Kennedy in her book The Cuisines of Mexico (1972), this almond sponge cake recipe is quite simple to make.

Torta de cielo literally translates to 'heavenly cake' and I do find the flavor of almonds heavenly. I knew I wanted to try making this but I saw a number of recipe variations. In the end, I chose to make the version posted by Meagan of Scarletta Bakes but with a couple of tweaks.

The result was a rather dense cake loaded with almond flavor and a bit of crunch from the ground almonds. Once cooled, a few seconds in the microwave softens the cake and livens the fragrant almond taste. While Meagan's recipe did not call for separating eggs and beating the whites, some of the other recipes I found did. I suspect that step would make this cake less dense and I might opt for that next time.

Nevertheless, the cake is a nice treat with a pot of afternoon tea or a big mug of morning coffee. And, Brian did not agree with me about trying to make the cake lighter next time. He thought it was perfect as it was...as evidenced by the fact that there's now a large pile of crumbs on the stand that housed the cake just two days ago! :) Enjoy!










Ingredients
1 Stick plus 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 Cups almonds
1 Cup sugar
3 Large eggs
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Teaspoon almond extract
1 Teaspoon baking powder
1/2 Cup all purpose flour
1/2 Teaspoon salt
Confectioners' sugar for dusting top of cake

Line a 9" cake round or spring-form pan with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

Place the almonds in a food processor and pulse until the nuts are the consistency of coarse meal.

Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, extracts. Add the salt, baking powder and flour until just incorporated. Fold in the almond meal and pour the batter into the cake pan.

Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for approximately 40 minutes (begin checking at 30 minutes) until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before unmolding from the cake pan. Dust with confectioners' sugar. Makes approximately 8 servings.