Apple & Almond Torte (Flourless Cake)
I took this dessert to a friend’s home for dinner, and it didn’t take much time to prep. All you need is a bit of patience while it bakes (or you can hop in the shower and get ready for dinner, as I did). The aromas of cardamom, butter and apples were insane, and filled the entire home as it baked. Gorgeous.
I used an heritage grain, Emmer, but you can use Spelt, and if you don’t have Spelt, you can use an all-purpose flour.
There are so many apples out there right now, choose a few you love and get slicing to make this simple torte! It’s gorgeous with vanilla ice cream or a simple dollop of crème fraiche.
Apple & Almond Torte (Flourless Cake)
Yield: 4 people
Equipment
- 20cm (8-in) pie dish
Ingredients
- 2 apples: 1 Granny Smith and 1 Gala peeled, cored and sliced into 2/3 cm or ¼ inch pieces
- ½ lemon juiced
- 100 g Emmer flour or spelt
- 50 g almond flour
- ½ tsp Pakistani Pink Salt marketed as Himalayan salt
- ½ tsp crushed cardamom seeds
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 50 ml buttermilk
- 1 tsp pure vanilla essence
- 115 g unsalted butter
- 140 g coconut sugar
- 1 tbsp flaked almonds
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175C. Grease your pie dish.
- Squeeze lemon juice on apples, and gently toss, ensuring that slices are evenly coated with the juice.
- Whisk together flour, almond flour, salt, crushed cardamom, and baking powder.
- In a separate bowl, whisk eggs with buttermilk and vanilla essence. With an electric mixer on medium, beat in the butter and coconut sugar until fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add in the dry mixture in 3 batches, alternating with wet mixture; beat until combined.
- Transfer batter to pie dish and smooth the top (an offset spatula works well here).
- Arrange apple slices on top in a slightly overlapping circular pattern.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into centre comes out clean.
- Adorn with flaked almonds and icing sugar. Serve and enjoy with crème fraiche or sour cream.
