Tiroler Nusskuchen - Tirolian Nutcake - and a simple pound cake recipe

 

Tirolian Nutcake

When I was a kid, I helped my mum in the kitchen. My special fields were salad dressings and cakes. Despite being around when she was cooking, I never really developed cooking skills. Beside some dishes I am quiet successful with, I prefer very much baking over cooking. For good reasons: the entire home smells better, the kitchen is less messy, and you enjoy a cake usually over a longer period of time meaning baking is a much more efficient process.

One of my usual cakes for the weekend was among others a plain "pound cake" (Sandkuchen) with lemon icing. That easy and quick cake can be varied and become a "marble cake" (Marmorkuchen) when adding chocolate powder (and icing sugar on top). Or it can become a "birthday cake" when adding chopped nuts and chocolate (and rum raisins for those who like it, together with a chocolate coat). But recently, I found a more elegant variation of the pound cake, a recipe that tops it all: it's the Tirolian Nutcake (Tiroler Nusskuchen).


ingredients:
200 gr butter
200 gr sugar
6 eggs (separate white and yolk)
250 gr almonds (1/2 roughly cut, 1/2 finely ground)
200 gr dark chocolate grated (rasped or finely cut)
125 gr flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
lemon skin grated


how to:
1) mix well butter, sugar and egg yolk
2) add flour, baking soda and cinnamon
3) add all almonds (fold in with wooden spoon)and lemon skin
4) mix well egg white until stiff (in separate bowl)
5) fold into dough with wooden spoon
6) at the end add the chocolate and fold in slowly
7) bake 1h at 180 degree (don't forget to preheat the oven)


Tips:
Bake the cake a day earlier as it will taste even better the next day(s).
You can also freeze the cake or part which makes it also yummy moistly later.
Instead of making a cake, you can make muffins.
Top the cake or muffins with icing sugar.
If you don't have icing sugar, make some by adding normal sugar in a mixer.

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My basic Pound Cake recipe, easy to remember, easy to vary:

ingredients:
250 gr butter
250 gr sugar
250 gr flour
4 eggs
1 pack of vanilla sugar (teaspoon)
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 spoon of rum

how to:
1) mix butter, entire eggs and sugar well
2) add flour ad baking soda
3) add vanilla sugar and rum
4) bake 1h at 180 degree

Tips:
You can double the ingredients to use the heated oven more efficiently with two cakes, or one cake and muffins. You can freeze part of your bake.
Topping can be simple icing sugar, or lemon icing (lemon zest with icing sugar), or melted chocolate.
For the "marble cake" variation, take 1/3 of the dough in another bowl and add (sieved) dark chocolate powder (up to your taste). Into the cake pan add first one layer white dough, then a layer chocolate dough and the last layer again white dough. Dip with a fork gently up and down through the layers to achieve the marble effect.