GF Almond Lemon Pound Cake with Raspberry Balsamic Sauce

Hey! I hope everyone had a good weekend! This weekend I decided to experiment with a flour that I haven't dealt with before, almond flour.

Almond flour consists of ground up blanched almonds, and is rather popular in the world of gluten free, judging from blogs and such I've searched through. One of my friends on Twitter, @GlutenFreeFinds, referred me to Elana's Pantry, a gluten free blogger who's written several cookbooks on using almond flour. In summary, almond flour is high in protein and healthy fats, and is low in carbohydrates. The major con that kept me from trying almond flour all this time is the price: its the most expensive gluten free flour I've come across, at ~$15 per pound. Yikes. But if you want to risk the cost for the taste of it, please go to Elana's Pantry to learn everything you'd want to know about almond flour. It's a fantastic resource. The one thing I've learned is that Bob's Red Mill almond flour is not the best out there. Elana mentions it on her blog, and I back her up on it, the texture while cooking comes out overly wet, and takes longer to bake. Once again, go to her blog for more suggestions on where to get the best almond flour, and for a lesser cost than $15 per pound.

Along with trying a new flour in baking gluten free desserts, I wanted to make a cake with a fresh citrus flavor to celebrate the coming of spring (I don't know about others, but I've always associated the freshness of citrus with spring). In the recipe I include how to make a raspberry balsamic sauce that I like to pair with the cake. It provides a good counterbalance to the sweetness of the cake and ice cream (if you decide to serve it with ice cream, which I wholly recommend).

Also, I would like to mention ICCK's gluten free pound cake, as this cake recipe is a variation of that one.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 1-1.5 hours

Cake Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp butter, room temperature, cubed
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• zest and juice of 2 lemons
• 2 cups almond flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• Raspberry-Balsamic sauce (optional, recipe below)

Steps:
1. Preheat the oven to 325F, and grease and flour (with almond flour) the inside of a bundt pan.
2. In a medium bowl, beat the butter until fluffy. Beat the sugar in by the half cup until creamy.
3. Beat in each egg one at a time. After the last egg, beat in the vanilla and lemon zest and juice.
4. In a small bowl, mix the flour, powder, and salt. Slowly beat the flour into the wet mix by the half cup.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan, and place in the oven for at least an hour. Once the edges brown and a toothpick comes out clean and dry, remove the cake from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.
6. Slice and serve with ice cream (optional) and sauce (also optional, recipe follows).

Raspberry-Balsamic sauce


Ingredients:

• 4 oz of raspberries
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tsp honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• zest of one lemon
• dash of pepper

Steps:
1. Preheat a small pan on low heat. Cut 3oz of the raspberries in half, and cook until berries have loosened, and become jam-like.

2. Press the jam through a fine strainer or cheesecloth to remove the seeds, and return to the pan.

3. Add all other ingredients, and increase heat to medium low. Cook the sauce for about 5 minutes. Cool and serve with the cake.