Fluffy Almond Flour Cake - Healthy Recipes Blog (2024)

FAQs

Is baking with almond flour healthy? ›

Almond flour is rich in vitamin E and other antioxidants, which help reduce the risk of serious health conditions like cancer, diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. It's also an excellent source of: Manganese. Magnesium.

If the oven is too hot then the cake will tend to cook more quickly on the outside and this pushes the centre up. But as the centre will not have cooked fully then it will sink on cooling.

Almond flour is a little more moist than wheat flour, and doesn't have quite the same binding qualities. You'll do best to substitute 1:1 to begin with, as many recipes respond well to this direct replacement. But be prepared to add more almond flour as you go to compensate for the wetter batter.

Almond flour also works best in baked goods with a high egg white content, because the egg white is a binding agent. If your recipe does not have a high egg content, you might need to add a binding agent, like xanthan gum or flax seed.

Almond flour can carry more moisture than traditional flour, therefore, you may need to add more of it to a recipe to prevent watery batter or dough. The extra moisture helps prevent baked goods from drying out quickly.

Almond flour is one of the most popular flour alternatives, and for good reason: It has a fine texture similar to wheat flour, but packs in twice as much protein and is unlikely to spike blood sugar. A quarter-cup serving also delivers around 20 percent of the RDI for magnesium.

It is also a good source of protein and fiber and gives a moist texture to baked goods. Almond flour is versatile — its nutty flavor and delicate texture work beautifully in all kinds of cookies, cakes, and breads. It can also be used as a gluten-free breading or coating for fried or baked foods.

Sometimes tenderness is what you're after, especially in cakes or muffins, and that's where almond flour shines. Used alongside all-purpose or whole grain flours, it can lighten a batter or dough, adding depth and softness without heft.

Cakes sink in the middle due to several factors, including overmixing of the batter, opening the oven door too soon, or not baking at the right temperature. Expired leavening agents or incorrect proportions of ingredients can also cause sinking.

And almonds have different properties than wheat berries do. One of the biggest (besides texture) is that wheat has gluten, and gluten is the part of the wheat protein that stretches and captures yeast bubbles and rises - almond “flour” has none, it just sits there. It is incapable of rising.

Why do flourless cakes fall? ›

Why Does the Flourless Chocolate Cake Fall After Baking? It's perfectly normal for this cake to fall slightly as it cools. Remember, flour typically acts as the backbone structure support of cake recipes. Without it, some falling is unavoidable.

For yeast dough of all kinds (bread, rolls, pizza), add up to 1/3 cup almond flour per cup of wheat flour (all-purpose, bread, whole wheat, etc.) For non-yeast treats (cookies, scones, cake, biscuits, muffins, etc.), substitute almond flour for 1/4 (25%) of the flour in the recipe.

Breading: Use almond flour in place of breadcrumbs or flour to make a gluten-free crust for fish or chicken. Use chopped almonds instead of very finely ground ones for a crunchier coating. Meatballs and meat loaf: Substitute almond flour for any bread used in your favorite recipes.

It requires different measurements and adjustments to achieve the right texture in baked goods. A good rule of thumb is to use 1/2 to 3/4 cup of almond flour for every 1 cup of wheat flour in a recipe. But not all recipes are suitable for almond flour substitution.

I usually start with one more egg, and then add another closer to the end if the batter seems too heavy and thick. One important thing to note when adapting wheat flour recipes is that your almond flour batter will almost always be thicker.

When you replace some of the all-purpose flour with almond flour in non-yeast recipes, you'll probably notice a difference in how your baked goods either rise, or spread. Cookies and scones may spread more; cake, biscuits, and muffins may rise less.

The Basic Baking Guidelines

Our chef prefers to add a little xanthan gum or cornstarch to the almond flour to help with the texture, though it is not entirely necessary to do so. Almond flour is pretty forgiving in that regard. Some use arrowroot powder to achieve a similar effect in their bread recipes.