Week 6 - Burnt Almond Torte

First of all, thanks to Melanie for insisting I make this - it was well worth the effort as it is awesome...But let me warn you - it takes a while. This is a Pittsburgh tradition. Prantl's bakery makes this cake and a portion of the recipe was in my "what Pittsburgh Eats" cookbook...

So I made the torte or cake from the recipe here http://www.food.com/recipe/copycat-of-prantls-burnt-almond-torte-389467
Then my cookbook said to make pastry cream and buttercream icing and toasted almonds.  All of which I made from scratch...now you see why this was involved...Lotsa bowls.

First, I made the cake from scratch - the recipe was good. I have never used buttermilk in a cake before but it smelled great in the oven. You only need to use half of the cake for the recipe so I have have an almond torte which I will probably bring in tomorrow with regular buttercream icing for the coworkers!

The pastry cream required that I temper eggs! i have never done that before either.  My cream was slightly lumpy but good nonetheless.  Here is a picture of half the torte with the pastry cream on it...

Then I had to make the buttercream icing and the almonds.  Butterceam icing is good and I am still wowed by the process of icing...silly but cool.

It was delicious! Truly - you can see why this is a tradition. The almonds are slightly salty and the cake is sweet....Definitely a crowd pleasing dessert.

Again - I am so skimpy on the icing...although it was better this time than last time...And to my co-workers, I didn't bring the cake in because Mike was upset about the Steelers loss so I thought I would leave him the torte for comfort today. We'll see what's left over!

And also - I made Steelers game day sausage which also was a wowzer...Had a big day of cooking yesterday.  And thanks to my mom and Tom who gave us a lava mortar and pestle for Christmas, the only way to make guacamole!

Next week...Strawberry shortcake!