Almond praline creams

Had some friends coming to stay over the weekend, so decided to make some small cakes to have with tea.
I bought a book in a charity shop a while ago, called 'The Encylopedia of Baking'; it has no author and I think it was originally published in Germany. It has some unusual cake and biscuit recipes, so I thought I'd make these almond praline creams, as I had half a bag of flaked almonds left over from the almond and honey cake.
The creams look a bit like whoopie pies, and  I think they're really more like a cross between a cake and a biscuit. It's a basic sponge cake recipe, and whatever they are, cake or biscuit, they taste good, and the ingredient list is short and you've probably got everything in your store cupboard.
The recipe makes about 30 biscuits.

4 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
pinch salt
200g plain flour
75g flaked almonds
200g Nutella or any hazelnut chocolate spread
40g dark chocolate

Preheat oven 200C/gas 6
Grease a baking sheet and dust it with flour.

Put yolks into a bowl and beat them with an electric mixer or beater for a minute on high speed. Then add the sugar and salt and carry on beating for another 2 mins till the mixture is white.
Gradually add the flour.
Put the mixture into a piping bag and pipe thickish rounds on the baking tray using a wide nozzle.
Decorate the tops with flaked almonds.
Bake for 10 mins then take them off the baking sheet.
Melt the nutella in a bowl over some hot water, stirring till it's nice and creamy and smooth.
Spread  over the smooth sides of half the biscuits and cover with the other halves.
Melt the chocolate and drizzle over the biscuits.

These little sponges are a good texture, soft and spongy! Good contrast with the hazelnut filling and the crunch of the almonds.

Think I'll make it my 2nd offering to the April Alpha Bakes challenge, to bake something beginning with A.

This is a monthly challenge hosted alternately by Ros of The More than Occasional Baker blog and Caroline of Caroline Makes blog. Ros is hosting this month - have a look here.

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Israeli Date and Pecan Cake

This month's challenge from Alpha Bakes is a hard one - baking something beginning with letter I . Lots of recipes begin with 'iced ....... ' but I wanted to find something different.
I borrowed a book from the library called 'Cakes, Tortes and Gateaux'  - it has no author, and I found a recipe for an Israeli cake. I love cakes with nuts and I like dates, so had to give it a try. I changed a few things in the recipe, and had to convert it to grams. It worked out really well, and is full of good things.

2 eggs
180ml honey
150ml buttermilk
1 tspn vanilla essence
3 mashed bananas
300g sr flour
1 tspn baking powder
100g soft brown sugar
2 tbspn cocoa
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn allspice
pinch salt
125g butter
150g chopped dates
125g chopped pecans
2 tbspns honey for top of cake

Preheat oven 180C/gas4
grease a 23cm springform tin

Beat together the eggs, honey, buttermilk and vanilla essence, then add the bananas.
Keep 2 tbspn of the flour, then put the rest with the baking powder, sugar, cocoa, spices and salt in another bowl and add the egg mixture. Mix together gently with an electric beater or stand mixer, then add the butter and beat till smooth. Takes about 4 mins.
Mix the 2 tbspn flour with the dates and pecans and fold these into the mixture.
Spoon into the tin and bake for 1 hr and 20 mins.
Heat the 2 tbspn of honey and brush over the cake, then leave it to cool.

It's a lovely nutty cake, not too sweet, and it also keeps very well in an airtight tin. We had it as a dessert with some creme fraiche, but ice cream would be good too. It's full of flavour and is moist, but not too soft. You can really taste the dates and pecans. I expected it to be like a sticky toffee pudding, but it wasn't.

Alpha Bakes is a monthly baking challenge hosted alternately by Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker blog and Caroline of Caroline Makes blog. This month Caroline is hosting, the letter is I and you can find out more about the challenge here .

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