Home Sweet Home “Le St Germain” Almond Cake

Was feeling a little homesick at the weekend so I decided to make the speciality cake from my hometown, St Germain en Laye, 10 miles west of Paris. “Le St Germain” as it is called, was created in 1920 by Patisserie Hardy on rue des Louviers. It is a very moist almond cake, packed with flavour. Traditionally made with rum or kirsch, I made mine using Soplica, a polish hazelnut liqueur, as it is all I had handy, and it tasted absolutely amazing!

There is no flour in the recipe, so it is more akin to a frangipani rather than a traditional cake as we know. The recipe is said to be a closely guarded secret, but my mum managed to get a recipe shared by Patisserie Hardy on a one-off open day a few years ago.

Ingredients: For 8 people

• 100 g melted butter
• 200 g caster sugar
• 200 g ground almonds
• 3 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of Kirsch or Rum traditionally, or Soplica (not traditional) as I used

For the Icing:

• 8 level tablespoons icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons of rum, kirsch or Soplica
• 1 tablespoon of water

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven 180 C, or 160 C fan. Line a 20 cm cake tin with greaseproof paper on the bottom and butter the sides well.

2. Beat the eggs, then stir in the sugar, ground almonds and mix well before adding the melted butter and 2 tablespoonsful of your chosen liquor.

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3. Mix well, pour into the prepared cake tin and cook for 35-45 minutes, covering the top with foil halfway through cooking if it starts browning too much.

4. When cooked take out of the oven and leave for 2 minutes before removing from tin.

5. To make the icing: sift the icing sugar before stirring all icing ingredients together well until there are no lumps.

6. Ice the cake while still warm (which seemed odd to me but that is THE traditional method as instructed by the recipe)

5. Enjoy! But this cake tastes better the next day…so best to make it a day ahead.

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Hope you like making and eating this! Leave me a comment if you give it a try. Thank you for reading 🙂