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This Almond Cake Recipe is Made with Date Sugar
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If you have ever made a flourless chocolate cake, you’ll understand the process and why this cake bakes the way it does. Same physics, different flavor. Ground nuts and eggs hold everything together; there’s no gluten in sight to do the structural work. What makes this almond cake taste like nothing else in that category of desserts is the date sugar. Date sugar is just dates, dried and ground, carrying every note of caramel and butterscotch the fruit had to begin with. Add it to an almond cake with California prune puree and half a cup of honey, and you get a cake that is deeply golden brown and, in fact, quite delicious.
What Is Date Sugar?
Date sugar is not sugar the same way that granulated cane sugar is sugar. It is whole dried dates, ground fine, and not much else. The California Date Commission calls it “a finely ground, natural sweetener that works well in baking and cooking,” which is a modest way to describe something that carries the full flavor of the fruit it came from. California dates have an intense caramel-like flavor with notes of cinnamon, butterscotch, and toffee. That means this cake is built on all of those flavor notes, too.
Because date sugar is ground fruit rather than extracted crystals, it does not melt and disappear into a batter the way cane sugar does. In this recipe, that works in your favor. When you process date sugar with whole almonds in a food processor, as this recipe calls for, the two break down together into a fine powder, which becomes the foundation of the cake.
Dates Grow Where Almost Nothing Else Wants To
Growing dates requires a relentless amount of heat, which is why the Coachella Valley is one of the only regions of North America capable of producing fully tree-ripened dates. A date palm needs roughly 2,400 hours of extreme temperatures, often around 100 F, before the fruit will fully mature. About 95% of the domestic date crop grows in California.
Labor is the other half of the story when it comes to growing dates. Date palms are not hybridized in the conventional sense, which means pollination happens by hand, one palm at a time. Each tree takes about 100 hours of work a year, making dates one of the most labor-intensive crops grown in the Golden State. Harvest begins mid-October and runs through Thanksgiving.
Want to meet a grower? You should read our article about Flying Disc Ranch, eleven organic acres in Thermal where Robert Lower farms more than 30 varieties, including a batch of unnamed ones he calls brown honeys and one he has nicknamed the Root Beer date. And if you ever find yourself out that way, the Coachella Valley Date Shake is not optional. Of course, you can also whip up a few date shakes at home with our easy recipe.
The Delicious History & How to Make Our Twist On The Classic Date Shake
The date shake is a beloved dessert that is a hallmark of California’s Coachella Valley. Its roots can be traced back to the 1930’s, when the first recorded recipe for the shake was created.
Our CA GROWN version of the iconic date shake calls for just a few simple ingredients and really makes the dates the star of the show.
California Prune Puree Brings Moisture and Richness To This Recipe Too
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Prunes are one of the most underrated baking tools in the entire pantry.
Prune puree blends effortlessly into batters like this one, making it the MVP of a lot of our favorite baked goods these days. It can be used to replace one-third to half of the sugar in a recipe. A quarter cup will stand in for one large egg. You can also swap up to half the butter or oil for an equivalent amount of puree.
This cake uses it for the second job. Prune puree is used for the second job: replacing some of the eggs that would otherwise be required to make this cake. The prune puree brings moisture and a low, wine-dark depth of flavor that keeps all that honey and date sugar from tipping into cloying territory. Bake the cake without it, and you’re going to miss it.
Making the puree itself only takes a few minutes in the blender. One pound of California prunes and one cup of very hot water go straight into the blender and blend until smooth and luscious. Small chunks of prune in the puree are totally normal, but a high-powered blender can blend them away, creating a silkier puree. Once blended, prune puree will keep up to months in the refrigerator if kept tightly sealed. Trust us, once you have a jar in your fridge, you’ll use it on everything.
California Almonds Bring Structure and Flavor
You may have scrolled to check out the recipe by now and realized that there is no all-purpose, gluten-free, or even cake flour in this recipe. Instead, this recipe calls for whole almonds and a small amount of finely ground brown rice flour. The almonds give this cake its rich crumb and beautiful bronze color.
In case you didn’t know, 80% of the world’s supply of almonds comes from California, nearly all of it out of the Central Valley. Winters there stay mild and wet before giving way to more than 280 days of sunshine a year, and the soil underneath runs deep and rich.
Timing matters if you have ever driven Highway 99 in late winter. Almond bloom runs from late February to early March, and it is one of the largest pollination events on the planet. Roughly two-thirds of the nation’s honeybee colonies are trucked into California orchards to work their magic. Harvest them in late summer through early fall. When machines called shakers grab each tree by the trunk and shake the nuts loose to dry in the orchard for a week or two. California almond growers have also cut their water use by 33% over the last 20 years. No small feat.
The bee pollen sprinkled across the top of this cake, by the way, is a nice wink at the bees that made the crop possible in the first place.
What Kind Of Texture Does This Cake Have?
The closest reference point we can give you for the texture of this cake is that it is more similar to a flourless chocolate cake than a baked boxed cake. The same principles are at work here. Ground nuts, eggs, and fat, with a small amount of brown rice flour, mean no gluten structure. The end result is rich and delicious with a velvety mouthfeel you will go back for again and again.
This Honeyed Almond Cake with Date Sugar is the perfect cake for all sorts of occasions year-round, and it is effortlessly customizable. Swap the orange zest for Meyer lemon zest in the winter. Trade the strawberries for whatever seasonal produce your local market is stocking right now. Maybe that looks like fresh stone fruit in late summer or a fruit-filled compote come fall. You can also skip the fruit entirely and serve slices slightly warm with coffee or tea.
Ungarnished cakes will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days, or you can freeze one for up to a month, thaw it overnight in the refrigerator, and bring it back to room temperature before serving. The cake being warm or room temperature matters more than you might think. Cold dulls the caramel notes in the date sugar.
Consider Us Inspired
This recipe is adapted from the Almond, Honey, Date Cake published by Brian Levy on his Substack, Formal Assignment.
His original recipe inspired us when it leaned on a food processor from start to finish, and it makes a beautiful argument for what date sugar and whole almonds can do together.
Image credit: Brian Levy of Formal Assignment.
What Are You Waiting For? Go Bake It!
Dates from the desert, prunes from the Sacramento Valley, almonds from the Central Valley, all of it landing in one nine-inch pan.
Need A New, Delicious Playlist For Your Next Baking Sesh? Check Out Our CA GROWN Spotify Playlists:
BE SURE TO SHARE YOUR LOVE FOR DATE SUGAR AND THIS ALMOND CAKE WITH US BY SNAPPING A PIC AND TAGGING US ON SOCIAL USING #CAGROWN.
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Honeyed Almond Cake with Date Sugar
Ingredients
- 1 TBSP olive oil
- 1/3 cup sliced almonds
- 1 large Navel or Cara Cara orange, zest removed
- ¾ cup whole almonds, raw or blanched
- 1 cup plus 2 TBSP of date sugar
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ cup honey
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ¾ tsp almond extract
- 2 sticks of unsalted butter, cubed and softened
- ½ cup prune puree recipe included in notes below
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 3 large eggs
- ¾ cup brown rice flour
- 1 ½ cups fresh strawberry slices; you could use any in-season berry as the fresh fruit garnish
- 1 cup unsweetened whipped cream, optional to serve
- 1 TBSP honey for serving
- 1 TBSP bee pollen granules, optional to serve
Instructions
- Position a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 325°F (180°C). Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a 9-in (23-cm) light-colored metal cake tin with olive oil and line the bottom with a parchment round. Brush the parchment round with olive oil.
- The bottom of this cake will become the top of the finished cake. Depending on how you want the finished cake to look, sprinkle sliced almonds around the outside edges of the pan, leaving an empty circle in the center, or spread them out entirely across the bottom of the pan to cover the entire top of the cake. Spread the orange zest evenly over the almonds and the center of the pan.
- In a food processor, process the almonds and date sugar until the nuts are a fine powder. Add the baking powder, and pulse to mix it in. Add the honey, vanilla, and almond extract, then process until smooth. Depending on your food processor, this step may require that you stop and scrape the sides down quite a few times before the mixture becomes a smooth paste.
- Add the butter, prune puree, and salt. Again, process until smooth, scraping down the walls of the processor as often as needed.
- With the food processor running, add the eggs one at a time, and stop the machine once the liquid looks creamy and homogeneous. Finally, add the brown rice flour and pulse just until it’s mixed in.
- Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, then gently tap the pan on the counter a few times to eliminate any bubbles.
- Bake the cake just until a sharp paring knife comes out clean, for about 45-50 minutes. Place the cake on a cooling rack and run a sharp paring knife around the perimeter to loosen it from the pan. After 15-30 minutes, invert the cake onto a plate or cutting board and then slide it back onto the cooling rack to finish cooling.
- Serve on its own, slightly warm or at room temperature. Or top it with a drizzle of honey, unsweetened whipped cream, fresh in-season berries, and bee pollen right before serving.