Orange Butter Cake with Almond Crust

Had this craving for orange cake and I found the recipe with almond flakes interesting, so I decided to combine them together. As I am making a loaf for a friend, I poured the balance batter into a 20cm X 20cm which came out quite shallow for a cake. However, with the almond flakes, it came out nice for a small bites.

Made some modification, I reduced the sugar from 225g to 180g and 12tbps of milk to 8tbsp milk & 4tbps orange juice (hoping to have more orange flavour but the almond toppings overwhelmed the orange flavours). As for the honey crust, I have increased  the almond flakes from 90g to 120g as I  have quite a fair bit of the honey mixture. The next time I bake this again, I will want to reduce the honey to 30g as I find it abit too sweet.

Ingredients

195g all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
170g unsalted butter, softened
180g sugar (reduced from225g)
1 large egg, plus one large egg yolk
1 1/2 tbsp orange zest
8 tbsp whole milk
4 tbsp orange juice (additional ingredients)

Honey Almond Crust
120g almond slices (increased from 90g)
30g honey (reduced from 50g)
30g butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius. Butter and line cake pan. (I used a 20cm X 20cm pan & a loaf pan)
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
4. Beat in orange zest, then eggs.
5. Add flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with milk & orange juice.
6. Beat just until batter appears uniform. The batter should look thick and creamy.
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top with spatula.
8. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until it reaches a dark-gold color and an inserted cake tester comes out clean. (Cover with aluminium foil if the top brown too fast)
9. While the cake is baking, prepare honey and almond crust topping. Add butter, honey and almond slices into a shallow saucepan. Heat to melt the butter and honey, ensuring that the almond slices are well-coated with the honey-butter mixture.
10.Top with the honey almond crust mixture evenly over the cake and return the cake to the oven at 180C until the almond are roasted to a lovely golden brown, which takes approx. 8-10 mins.

11.Wait for the cake to cool down before slicing.