By March, and Mama\'s birthday — the third without her — and the coconut cake at four AM, and the cemetery visit, and Joy\'s singing on the phone. The ritual is unchanged. The unchanging is the love.
But this year, the birthday holds something new: Will. Will is seven weeks old. He does not know it is his great-grandmother\'s birthday. He does not know he had a great-grandmother. But he will know. I will tell him. I will tell him about Carolyn Simmons from Beaufort, about the parsonage kitchen, about the she-crab soup and the biscuits and the cast-iron skillet. I will tell him the stories that the cookbook tells. And the telling will be the teaching, and the teaching will be the chain, and the chain now extends from a parsonage in Beaufort to a cradle in Charleston, four generations, one soup, one love.
I made the coconut cake. I took cake to the cemetery. I said, "Mama, you have a great-grandson. His name is William James. He has your chin." The speaking to the stone is the practice. The practice is the love. And the love has a chin now. And the chin is Mama\'s.
I made coconut cake for Mama every March, and I always will — but this year, with Will asleep in the next room and four generations suddenly, miraculously real in one house, I needed a second cake. Something layered and celebratory, something that felt like an occasion worthy of the chain. This Almond Raspberry Torte is that cake: elegant enough for a birthday, tender enough for grief, and sweet enough for a seven-week-old boy who will one day hear the whole story of why we bake.
Almond Raspberry Torte
Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 12
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure almond extract
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 3/4 cup sliced almonds, divided
- 1 cup seedless raspberry jam, warmed
- 1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries (for topping)
- Powdered sugar, for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Lightly flour the sides.
- Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat butter and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in almond extract and vanilla extract.
- Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the butter mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix just until smooth.
- Add almonds and bake. Fold in 1/2 cup of the sliced almonds. Divide batter evenly between the prepared pans and smooth the tops. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup almonds over one layer (this will be the top layer). Bake 28–32 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the edges are lightly golden.
- Cool completely. Let cakes cool in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool completely before assembling, at least 1 hour.
- Assemble the torte. Place the plain layer on your serving plate. Spread the warmed raspberry jam evenly over the top, going all the way to the edges. Gently set the almond-topped layer over the jam.
- Finish and serve. Arrange fresh raspberries over the top of the torte. Dust lightly with powdered sugar just before serving.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 20g | Carbs: 56g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 140mg