Here is another easy recipe with fancy results!
Cake Ingredients
- 3.5 oz of almond paste
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/3 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
Glaze Ingredients
- 4 tbsp butter
- 5 tbsp milk
- 2 tbsp light corn syrup
- pinch salt
- 16 oz confectioners sugar
- quality food coloring
- candied violets or roses
Cake Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 24 mini muffin cups.
Crumble almond paste into a food processor fit with metal blade. Add granulated sugar and pulse gently until almond paste is finely ground. Add butter and process until smooth. Add eggs one at a time and process until combined, occasionally stopping and scraping down the side of the bowl with a spatula. Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Process until blended but do not overmix! Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling almost to the top. Bake cakes for 15 minutes or until golden brown at the top springs back when depressed with a fingertip. Cool cakes in the pan for 10 minutes and then dump cakes onto wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Glaze Instructions
You can either microwave the glaze or melt over a very gentle stovetop. Heat butter until melted. Stir in milk, corn syrup and salt, then stir in confectioners sugar until the glaze mixture is smooth. Reserve 2 tablespoons of white glaze for decorating tops of petit fours but keep covered to avoid drying out. Divide remaining glaze into desired number of small glass bowls and color accordingly. Use color sparingly; these cakes are most appealing when tinted delicately.
Assembly Instructions
Trim the tops of the cakes so when inverted they will sit flat. Invert cakes on wire rack and spoon tinted glazes over cakes. Setting rack over a cookie sheet or waxed paper allows easy clean up and even retrieval of glaze, should you need more! The glaze will drip down over the sides, you want to use a small metal icing spatula to smooth the glaze evenly . Running the spatula under hot water will make the spreading easier. Allow glaze to set for 25 minutes.
When set, use the remaining white and colored glazes to pipe dots, lines, swirls, or letters on the tops of cakes, if desired. You can use a regular icing bag with a fine rounded tip or just a heavy duty platic bag with the corner snipped off. Remember to not snip a lot a first! Sugared violets are also classic decorations. Allow all designs to dry completely before serving.