For cake batter

1 2/3 cups flour
1/3 cup finely ground blanched almonds
1/3 cup finely ground roasted almonds
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup milk
4 eggs
1 cup melted butter (cooled)
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest mixed with two tablespoons of sugar
1/4 cup pine nuts

Butter or margarine for greasing pan

Place half the pine nuts (1/8 cup) in a bowl of water and let them soak for about an hour (Soaking them in water will help prevent them from burning later on).

When the hour has ended drain the water from the pine nuts and place them on a kitchen paper towel so that any excess water is removed.



Preheat oven to 350 degree F.

Grease coffee cake or "tube" pan.

In an electric mixer blend eggs and sugar until they are creamy.

Add milk to the egg and sugar mixture.

Add cooled butter.

Add finely ground almonds.

Add baking powder.

Add flour.

Fold in the finely grated lemon zest which has been mixed with two tablespoons of sugar.

Fold in the 1/8 cup of pine nuts that have NOT been soaked in water.

Pour the batter in a tube or coffee cake pan that has been nicely greased.*

Sprinkle the pine nuts that were soaked in water (and are now are drained and dried) on top of the cake batter.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes (or until a skewer placed in the cake comes out dry).

Cool the cake before removing it from the pan.



*A 9 inch tube-style pan should produce a cake that when cooked is at least 4 inch high.

This is a wonderful cake that is very popular in Northern Italy. There are dozens of variations -- some cooks add vanilla extract, others include lemon juice, and many others don't roast the almonds, nor do they use milk. I love roasted almonds so I generally substitute "blanched" ground almonds with roasted almonds. I find that store-bought blanched ground almonds are tasteless at best, and bitter at worst. I prefer to roast my almonds whole and then grind them with an electric chopper. Also, I find that if milk is not part of a coffee cake mix one has to use a lot more butter which is not in itself a bad thing but I prefer not to do so. In any case the combination of almonds, lemon zest and pine nuts is exceptionally good -- that's the good news. The bad news is that the ingredients for this cake are rather expensive, so if the cake doesn't rise or cook well, one will have wasted a fair amount of money for nothing. So one has to make sure that the batter is just right prior to it being put in the oven, but that requires some experience, I suppose. One more thing -- as far as I know most people don't soak pine nuts in water prior to using them, however, whenever I used pine nuts that had Not been soaked in water I found that they ended up burnt and tasting awful. So I decided to soak them in water for this recipe (After all Chinese cooks soak their bamboo sticks in water prior to using them to avoid them from getting burnt, so I figured the same trick might work for pine nuts and happily it did!). The cake I made with this recipe came out quite well -- the pine nuts that had been soaked in water and were used to decorate the top of the cake did not burn and tasted O.K. (Pine nuts don't have a strong flavor, but if they burn, they sure do get in the way of every other flavor). In any case this cake is rather easy to do and if it comes out O.K. guests will love it.... Photo: Mary Melfi.

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