Buttercrunch Almond Tea Cake

Now how's that for a cake for ya??

I'm a gadget woman, and very much so. Not that I have huge kitchen to actually accommodate all of the stuff, but I love having TONS of different things - like a collection of different cake tins - this Bundt one, a swirly one, cookie cutters, muffin pans, silicone moulds... I could go on! Guess cake tins are not really gadgets - they're necessities, aren't they?

Anyway, my current favorite is the aforementioned Bundt cake tin, also used for the blueberry adventure recently. It's funny how a lot of us think "who is reading this blog? Is anyone actually reading it?". Well, it turned out, that Lisa Yockelson, the author of Baking by Flavor, a FABULOUS book on baking, and a definite star in my cookbook collection read my entry on her Blueberry Tea Cake - and commented on it! Yowser! Someone is actually reading this!

So I thought I'd do another cake from her book, all in her honor. Who am I kidding, I needed cake!! The buttercrunch chapter had so far been left untouched, so that was what I dug into. Now, the one thing that troubled me about her reading the entry was of course - the copyright thing, as we've already discussed elsewhere. This time around, I'm gonna go with the "no-recipe-just-tempting-photos" and comments. Even though it might be legal to reproduce the ingredient list, my conscience just tells me it's not right - and this is actually a book you would want to own anyways! (And no, she did not promise to pay me anything for saying that!;-))

The Buttercrunch Almond Tea Cake is a really nice, fine-crumbed cake with PLENTY of - in my case - Daim chocolate! If you don't know Daim (the American equivalent would be Heath bars, which I don't know!) they look like this:




It's basically chocolate-covered caramel, which then melts into the batter and makes for crispy, chewy little specks in the batter - I tell you, yummy! The batter also contains a lot of spices, nutmeg, all-spice, and I really love how that enhances the taste and makes for a really nice cake in itself as well.



And it ended up like this:


It seems that even though I make sure to toss the chocolate with a bit of flour, they still end up in the bottom - any idea as to what else could be done to make them stay equally distributed in the cake? It was nice nevertheless...

Update!
LINK to the recipe - all legal matters aside, but seeing it's already out there, who would I be to deny you the pleasure?!?

One more UPDATE!
I was told the link didn't swork, so putting all shame aside, here it is:

THE Recipe!

10-inch Bundt pan
nonstick cooking spray for preparing the cake pan

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups unsifted bleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsifted bleached cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
8 packages (1.4 ounces each) milk chocolate-covered toffee (Heath Milk Chocolate English Toffee Bar) chopped into 1/4 inch chunks
1/4 cup slivered almonds, lightly toasted and cooled
½ pound (16 tablespoons or 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar, sieved if lumpy
4 large eggs
1½ teaspoons pure almond extract
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk blended with 1/4 cup light (table) cream
Confectioners' sugar for sprinkling on top of the baked cake (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prepare the Bundt pan. Set aside.

Sift the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and allspice onto a sheet of waxed paper. In a medium-size mixing bowl, toss the chopped toffee and almonds with 1 tablespoon of the sifted mixture.
Cream the butter in the bowl of a freestanding mixer - moderate speed for 3-4 minutes. Add granulated sugar and beat for 2 minutes, add the light brown sugar and beat for a minute longer. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Blend in the almond and vanilla extracts.
On low speed, alternatly add the sifted dry ingredients in three additions, with the milk-cream blend in two additions. Stir in the chopped toffee. Spoon the batter into the prepared Bundt pan.
Bake for 55 minutes to 1 hour - until risen, set and a wooden pick inserted in the cake withdraws clean. Cool on a rack for 5-6 minutes, then invert onto another cooling rack. Let cool completely, and dust with confectioners' sugar.

Taken from Baking by Flavor by Lisa Yockelson

- also, I'll just let you know that soon there'll be a new volume out by miss Yockelson, called "Chocolate, Chocolate". Oh my. It's already on my wishlist!