Amaretto cake recipe

Jazz up a simple sponge cake with ground almonds and amaretto liqueur for an indulgent treat or tasty pudding. It uses a basic sponge cake recipe and adds ground almonds and almond liqueur to make it a denser and intensely flavoured almond cake. It doesn't need any icing but if you like you can make a glace icing using almond essence or liquer instead of water to make up the icing. Drizzle over the cake when it's warm and leave to cool completely in the tin if you make glace icing.

Ingredients

• 200g softened butter
• 200g brown sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 2tblsp amaretto liqueur
• 180g flour
• 50g ground almonds
• 3tsp baking powder

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas Mark 5. Grease and line a deep (preferably spring-form) 10cm sandwich cake tin.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy. Beat the eggs and add the liqueur.
3. Mix in 1/3 of the eggs and 1/3 of the flour and gently fold in. Repeat until all of the eggs and flour are combined.
4. Add the baking powder and ground almonds, and fold through the cake mix.
5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 20-30mins until the cake is slightly risen and golden brown. A skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out with a few crumbs but no raw cake mixture attached. If it browns too much before it's cooked in the middle, cover with tin foil.
6. Cool in the tin for 10mins, then turn out onto a wire rack.
7. Serve warm with chocolate sauce or ice-cream, or allow to cool completely and cut into slices.