An email some motivation and tears of joy - Almond cake

It may sound familiar if I say "there are many  individual from childhood days I have lost contact ". Let me give you a short glimpse of my yesteryear's. Say 10 to 15 yrs back during my school days. I was an introvert who had countable number of friends. I was overshadowed by not being a bright student of the class, don't be surprised if I say, I was never good with my studies, since I hated competition (still do) and intelligence being constantly compared to marks got in exams. According to me intelligence is something a person achieves in any of his/her field of interest which finally gets noticed by people but never compared as each individual has their own originality.

From countable number of friends, one girl Bexci Christy who wore only white and black dress, as that was her fav, that too exactly similar pattern whenever we had a chance to wear color dress in school, was first to cross my mind when I thought of her. We studies together, she is taller than me so we didn't share same bench nor we giggled during class hours but ....i don't remember anymore it's 1 AM now my brain is hibernating. Slowly as we moved to higher grades we got dispersed to follow the blueprint with an urge to achieve what we intended in order to survive in the competitive world and to make our parents feel proud one day!

Years rolled, out of sheer hate, trust me it's "the" honest truth, I took physics, since I couldn't get thro' medical. Thank God for that, I have my own way now. Slowly I fell in love with physics, got to know about research and then a way to attain Dr. before my name. That is the 'only' goal in life. I forgot the world when I moved to Finland, since I was seeing the future I dreamt off. Didn't expect it to be a cake walk but neither did I envisaged it to be hard like diamond, huge like mountain, scary as snake, deep as well, unreachable like ocean and lonely like forest. Getting lost period started, thanks to social-networks. That's when I started to get back in contact with my old friends, we had endless thing to share, talk and  above all  it made me feel like I gained human-connection, without which am a dead girl.

Slowly my blog baby shaped, not even in my wild dreams I thought it would reach this level, thanks to all who gave/giving me a push to do it and believed I could make it. Last week I received a friends request from Bexci and with small message asking for my email id. It was joyful start for the day, it took me back to those innocent days, loved it. She sent me a mail, which brought "tears of joy" in my eyes. It was filled with encouraging, appreciating and motivating words. I was on cloud9 and indeed had goose bumps. We are sharing long replies, about what's going on in each other lives and what are we up to. She is a prof. at a college teaching Visual Communication in India stepping in to area of research, I was super impressed. Getting a designation Prof before ur name isn't easy. It's a pile of hard work ,dedication and intelligence. That exactly proves marks doesn't matter!Kudos Lady!

She did create an impact in me for past few days, since I was again at my lower minima going through tough time with PhD. Like they say how small things makes large difference, it actually worked for me. So thank you Bexci and this is a special cake for you darling for making me realize "though I loose one little thing  I gain something precious!" 

This is an ultra simple cake, if you are by any chance in nutty mood then this is the cake. Original recipe is from David Lebovitz made few changes, reduced the amount of butter and quantity of eggs. Indeed shared with Vinoo, we loved the cake, as it was subtle chewy of course bit heavy as it contains only nuts but great with tea or for breakfast!

Ingredients

250 gram sugar
225 gram coarse almond paste
140 gram  flour
150 ml margarine ( you can use room temperature butter, original recipe asked for 225 gram,  I would say 150 gram will be more than enough!)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temperature

Method

Soak almond overnight, peal the skin and grind into coarse paste ( I wanted it chewy, its up to you make it smooth or coarse). Preheat the oven to 170 C.

Line the bottom of a 18cm  cake pan with a round of parchment paper, butter the pan and dust it lightly with flour, tapping out any excess. With an electric mixer, beat together the sugar and almond paste until smooth. Add butter and beat for a few minutes until light and fluffy. Now add egg yolk and vanilla mix well.

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Fold the dry ingredients into the batter until well incorporated.

Beat white egg until single peak.  Gently fold the egg white into the batter.

Transfer the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for about 40 to 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. The baking time may take bit longer due to the variation in oven and the way you grind the nut. Cool the cake on a rack before serving. This cake is extremely moist and will keep well for up to a week if well-wrapped.