Almond Cake A Good Base For Fruit Toppings

I am not a baker, and a baker I will never be.

This has to be a matter of nurture rather than nature. Though my mother was not a kitchen-type person, as much as she was any kind of a cook she was a baker, and I grew up around snickerdoodles and chocolate chips, Grandma Smith’s hickory nut cake and “julekake” and the occasional loaf of homemade white bread.

Even so, when I seriously began learning to cook, I lived at almost 6,000 feet above sea level. At that lofty clime, baking is not for the faint-hearted. That is the land of “decrease amount of baking powder by 1/3 at 3,500 feet, by 1/2 at 5,000 feet and by 2/3 above 5,000 feet … raise the oven temperature by 25 degrees … do not beat eggs quite as much as usual.” You get the picture.

Even then, there’s no guarantee things will work out. I vividly remember making a half-dozen heavier-than-lead spice cakes in one day before finally deciding the whole thing was just one big “pain.”

That’s not to suggest that my non-baker status is strictly a matter of atmospheric pressure. More to the heart of the situation, I believe I am constitutionally unfit for baking.

Bakers are recipe followers, the good soldiers of cooking. If you see a recipe that takes three pages of instructions to use five ingredients, you can bet it’s a cake.

Bakers like instructions, the more detailed the better. Tell them exactly what to do and they’ll obey without question. (I think there’s a certain security in this - if things don’t work out, they can claim they were only following orders.)

As for myself, I’m a messy cook, directionwise. Give me a recipe and I immediately start breaking it down, figuring how to change it, altering the procedures and ingredients in my head to come up with just the result that pleases me. This process continues through the actual cooking.

In the kitchen, I’m a dabbler and a dipper, tasting and adjusting as I go along. For me, a dish isn’t finished until it’s on the plate … and even then it’s not safe from a little last-second tucking and tasting.

All of this is not to suggest that bakers are bad people.

Some of my best friends are bakers. And some of them are even pretty good cooks. In fact, probably the best cook I’ve ever known started out as a baker. I will happily admit that there is something about the meticulousness and almost religious discipline of a good baker (it’s no accident that professional bakers usually begin the workday about 3 a.m.) that can make for an inspired cook, provided they can get past the whole baking thing.

Neither is this to suggest that I don’t, myself, bake.

In fact, from time to time I’ll get on a streak of baking cakes (though usually topped only by a dusting of powdered sugar, or a drift of whipped cream) and cookies (usually the ones that fit the Italian description “ugly but good”) like a regular Barney Crocker.

It never lasts, though. When it comes right down to it, I’m one of those oddballs who would rather have fruit than chocolate. While I’m perfectly happy having my cake, in all honesty, I’d just as soon eat a peach.

As a result, the cakes I tend to make most frequently are rather plain things that serve as bases for other ingredients. This almond cake from Lindsey Shere is a perfect example.

While it’s delicious by itself, with an extremely moist, almondy crumb, it’s best when served with fruit - apricots and peaches in the summer, poached pears in the fall, maybe a dried fruit compote in the winter.

My contribution to this recipe is simply converting the whole thing to the food processor. It comes out a little denser this way, but in my book, that’s an attribute. Besides, the whole thing comes together in less than 10 minutes, before baking. It’s a cake even a non-baker can love.

Almond Torte

Adapted from Lindsey Shere’s “Chez Panisse Desserts” (Random House: 1985).

1-1/4 cups sugar

8 ounces soft almond paste

1-1/4 cups softened unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

6 eggs, at room temperature

1 cup flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

In food processor work bowl, process sugar with almond paste until paste is in small pieces. Add butter and vanilla and continue processing until mixture is smooth. Add eggs, one by one, mixing until each is incorporated, then process until mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes. In small work bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Sprinkle over butter mixture and process in two or three short bursts, just until flour mixes in well.

Butter and flour 9-inch springform pan or 9x5-inch loaf pan and pour in batter, smoothing top evenly. Bake at 325 degrees 1 to 1-1/4 hours until wood pick inserted in center comes out clean and center feels springy when pressed gently with tips of fingers.

Yield: 12 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 396 calories, 137 milligrams sodium, 158 milligrams cholesterol, 27 grams fat, 35 grams carbohydrate, 6 grams protein.