Flourless Lemon Almond Cake

New Year. 2017. I don't do resolutions — the ER cured me of the fantasy that you can plan your year in January and have it cooperate. But I do take stock. One year since the breakdown, more or less. One year since the kitchen floor. I am standing. I am working. I am medicated and therapied and writing a food blog and cooking my way through every recipe Lourdes ever taught me. I am not the person I was before the floor. I will never be that person again. The person I'm becoming is quieter, more careful, more aware of the weight she carries and the weight she puts down. I think I like her. I'm not sure yet. We're still getting acquainted.

New Year's Day in the Filipino tradition means Media Noche — the midnight feast, similar to Noche Buena but with different emphasis. Round foods for coins, for prosperity: grapes, oranges, anything circular that promises a full year. Lourdes made pancit — long noodles for long life — and I brought leche flan, round and golden, my contribution to the prosperity symbolism. We ate at the Mountain View house, just the three of us — Lourdes, Angela, me. James was with his family. Joseph was on a boat. Mark was in San Diego.

The flan was perfect. I'm saying this without modesty because Lourdes said it, and Lourdes does not say things she doesn't mean, especially about flan. "Your caramel is right," she said, examining the amber sauce. This is the highest compliment in Lourdes's culinary vocabulary. Getting the caramel right — dark enough to be bitter, light enough to be sweet, that exact amber that sits on the edge between burnt and beautiful — is the test. I passed.

January in Alaska is the deepest cold. Negative fifteen today. The car struggles. The body struggles. The mind, if you're not careful, struggles most of all. But the kitchen is warm, and the flan is round, and Lourdes said my caramel is right, and Angela held my hand under the table when we toasted at midnight, a squeeze that said everything — I see you, I know where you were a year ago, I'm glad you're here. The squeeze was enough. The flan was enough. The new year is a circle, round like the things we eat to invoke it, and I am inside the circle, seated at the table, fed and feeding. That's where I plan to stay.

Lourdes said my caramel was right, and I am still living off that. But not every New Year’s table has the three hours leche flan demands, and not every kitchen has the nerve for it — mine didn’t, not the first time. This flourless lemon almond cake is what I made the week after, when I wanted to stay inside that feeling without the pressure of the caramel edge: something round, something golden, something that asks you to slow down and pay attention without punishing you if you look away for a second too long. It carries the same symbolism — round for the year, bright for the hope you’re still practicing — and it is forgiving in the way that good food, at its best, always is.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 10

Ingredients

2 cups blanched almond flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
Zest of 2 large lemons
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)
Thin lemon slices, for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan with butter or nonstick spray, then line the bottom with parchment paper.
Whisk the eggs and sugar. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and granulated sugar together for about 2 minutes until the mixture is pale, slightly thickened, and the sugar has mostly dissolved.
Add the wet ingredients. Stir in the melted butter, lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla extract until fully combined and smooth.
Fold in the dry ingredients. Add the almond flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold gently with a spatula until no dry streaks remain. The batter will be thick.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the top is deep golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. The edges will pull slightly from the pan.
Cool completely. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then turn it out and allow it to cool fully before serving. It sets as it cools — don’t rush this part.
Finish and serve. Dust with powdered sugar and top with lemon slices if using. Serve at room temperature. Keeps covered at room temperature for up to 2 days, or refrigerated for up to 5.

Nutrition (per serving)

Flourless Lemon Almond Cake — Round and Golden, Like the Year Beginning Again