When I was a child, I remember my mother bringing a big box full of fresh amandines. They seemed to me the tastiest and most aromatic cakes. In the last 30 years I haven’t eaten amandines, and when someone reminded me yesterday about them, how good they are, I put everything aside and started researching, conspecting and calculating. I adapted the classic recipe to the gluten and dairy free diet and I swear you can’t feel the difference. I left the sugar in, but used raw sugar and a bit of honey where possible.
Ingredients:
For the sponge:
- 150 grams of raw sugar
- 120 grams of rice flour
- 4 eggs
- 3 spoons of cocoa
- 1 packet of baking powder
- 1 packet of Bourbon vanilla sugar
- A pinch of salt
For the syrup:
- 100 grams of water
- 50 grams of raw sugar
- 1 spoonful of cappuccino
- 1 tablespoon of rum essence
For the cream::
- 80 grams of coconut butter
- 50 grams of raw powdered sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 spoon of cocoa
- 1 tablespoon of rum essence
- 1 tablespoon of water
For the glaze:
- 1 can of coconut cream (100 grams, I used Rapunzel cream)
- 150 grams of chocolate with 70% cocoa
- 1 tablespoon of coconut butter
- 1 spoon of honey
Method of preparation
We start with the sponge. Put the 4 eggs in the bowl of the mixer and mix, first at low speed, then increasingly high, until they become foamy. Add the sugar, little by little, and continue mixing at high speed, until the mixture doubles in volume and becomes a thick, foamy cream. It will take a few minutes. Meanwhile, separately, mix the flour, cocoa, salt, vanilla sugar and baking powder. We stop the mixer, remove the bowl from the position and gradually incorporate the dry mixture, stirring with the spoon. We put the batter in the pan lined with baking paper and put it in the hot oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test. I have a square pan with a removable edge and a side of 22 cm, and I calculated the quantities exactly for it. If you have a larger pan you will need to adjust the quantities accordingly. Let the sponge cool and make the syrup. Here it’s simple, we mix all the ingredients in a kettle that we put on a low heat, stirring continuously until the sugar melts. We leave this one to cool as well. Let’s move on to the cream. To bain marie, that is, in a bowl placed on top of another bowl of boiling water, put the coconut butter, powdered sugar (I grinded raw sugar in a coffee grinder), cocoa and a spoonful of water. Mix until the coconut butter melts, then add the well-beaten eggs and mix until it starts to thicken. Set aside, add the rum essence and let it cool. To speed up the cooling, I put in the fridge, stirring from time to time. When all the components have cooled, we cut the sponge into two parts as equal as possible. I turned it upside down, it’s more leveled that way. We syrup the bottom of the top, put the cream on top, put the top of the sponge and syrup it too. Refrigerate for about 2 hours. Now we make the glaze. In a kettle, melt and boil the coconut cream mixed with the coconut butter on a very low heat, being careful because it burns quickly, then pour it over the chocolate broken into pieces, add the honey and mix until the chocolate melts and becomes homogenous. We cut the cake into pieces as big as we want, I wanted them smaller, then we pour the glaze on each piece separately, with a spoon and carefully, so that it drips a little over the edge, so that it looks like the classic amandine. I didn’t have any cream left to put them that little top, but they look good without it. I didn’t skimp on the sugar, it’s suitable for all tastes. It doesn’t feel the lack of butter or cream in the composition, it has the familiar aroma of amandine.
