This Almond Cake with Amaretto Filling is an almond lover’s dream. It’s covered in an incredible almond buttercream. This cake takes a little time to prepare but it is worthy of a special occasion. It makes a fabulous wedding cake.
Hello and welcome to SpicySouthernKitchen.com. My name is Christin and I love food. Spicy foods and southern foods are my favorites. I love to try new things in the kitchen and it’s really not an exaggeration to say that I hardly ever cook the same thing twice.
Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share an extra-indulgent recipe- Almond Cake with Amaretto Filling. This has to be one of my favorite cakes ever. It has a wonderful almond flavor in the filling, the frosting, and the cake itself. It’s the almond lover’s trifecta. This cake is perfect for any special occasion whether it be Valentine’s Day, Christmas, a birthday, or even a wedding. My husband and I had an almond-flavored cake for our wedding. I still think about it almost 17 years later.
This is a recipe that was published in Taste of the South Magazine which is one of my favorite magazine’s for recipes. But sometimes their recipes can be hit or miss and they don’t always have the best directions. I was pleased to find that this recipe turned out exceptionally well, which is good because I put a large amount of time and energy into it.
I was a little uncertain about making the almond cream beacause after soaking the almonds in the 2 cups of heavy cream, I ended up with a lot less then 2 cups of almond cream, even after pressing the heck out of the almonds in the strainer. But the recipe doesn’t say how much you should end up with. I was worried I had too little and that I’d end up with a dry cake. I fugured I’d rather ere on the side of having too much liquid ingredients rather than too little, so I added in about another 1/4 cup of heavy cream. Because after all, how can you have too much heavy cream?
I was also a little afraid that my filling would not turn out because my gelatin didn’t seem to disslove very well. But it has heavenly. I would have been perfectly happy to forget the cake layers and just sit down on the couch with a spoon and the bowl of amarreto filling.
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Pin ItMore Almond Desserts
- Amaretto Cheesecake
- White Texas Sheet Cake
- Orange Almond Sheet Cake
- Coconut Almond Cream Cake
- Amaretto Brownies
- Almond Poppy Seed Pound Cake
Almond Cake with Amaretto Filling
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 2 cups sliced almonds, toasted
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 2 1/4 cups sugar
- 6 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 3 1/2 cups cake flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
Amaretto Filling
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream, divided
- 1/2 cup amaretto liqueur
- 1 (.25ounce) package unflavored gelatin
- 1/4 cup sugar
Almond Buttercream Icing
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
- 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/4 cup reserved almond cream
- 1 tablespoon amaretto liqueur
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 3 (9-inch) round cake pans with nonstick baking spray with flour. (Or butter and flour each pan.)
- In a large saucepan, bring cream to a simmer over medium heat. Add almonds to hot cream and remove from heat. Let stand 30 minutes. Strain almond mixture and reserve cream. (Really press down on almonds with a rubber spatula or back of a spoon to get as much liquid out as possible.) Place 1/4 cup of the almond cream in a small bowl to reserve for icing.
- In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until creamy. Add sugar and beat well. One at a time, add the eggs, stopping to scrape down sides of bowl periodically. Add extracts and beat to incorporate.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, alternating with remaining almond cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat until combined and divide batter evenly among the 3 pans.
- Bake until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean, 23 to 26 minutes. Let cool in pans 5 minutes and remove cakes from pans and let cool entirely on a wire rack.
- Make Amaretto Filling. In a small saucepan, combine 1/2 cup cream and amaretto liqueur. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat. Add gelatin to cream mixture, stirring until dissolved. Refrigerate for approximately 30 minutes. Mixture should be firm, but not set.
- In a large bowl, beat remaining 1 1/2 cups cream at high speed with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Add sugar and chilled gelatin mixture and beat well. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Beat for 2 minutes on medium-high speed and then spread between cake layers.
- Make Buttercream Icing. In a large bowl, beat butter at medium-high speed until creamy.
- Gradually add in confectioners’ sugar. Add almond cream and beat well. Add amaretto and extract.
- Spread Amaretto Filling between layers and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Spread icing on top and sides of cake. Store cake in refrigerator.
Notes
2 cups are used to make the almond cream. The almond cream is then divided and 1/4 cup is reserved for the Buttercream Icing and the rest is added to the cake batter.
A separate 2 cups of cream is used to make the Amaretto filling.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
More Cake Recipes
How many servings do you think you can get out of this cake?
Made this cake for my son’s birthday – his favorite. It was excellent. I have to say it was quite a bit of work but well worth it. The cake was beautiful – very large and will feed a lot of people. This recipe is a keeper!
So glad you enjoyed it. It definitely does take some time and effort to make, but one bite and you’d gladly do it again right? Hope your son had a wonderful birthday! So sweet of you to make the cake for him. 🙂
im planning on making this as a wedding cake and I have a question about the filling. Does all the alcohol cook out in that short amount of time on the stove while making it? Thanks!
To be honest Katrina, I don’t know exactly how long it takes alcohol to cook off. But I’m thinking not much of it cooks off in this case.
This has got to be the most frustrating recipe I have ever tried to follow! The whole cream debacle was incredibly confusing. We haven’t tasted the cake yet…but I’m really hoping it was worth it. I would re-write your instructions to explain exactly how much cream to use at specific points. We debated it as we worked on this cake and still got it wrong. We are not amateur bakers. Thanks!
Sorry about the confusion Karen. I added some Notes to the recipe to try and explain it better. Let me know if there is still confusion and I will try and figure out what it is.
Hi – I made this recipe for my father for his birthday because we forgot to order his Amaretto cake. Thought I was a cooking queen…this cake proved me otherwise. Would help if the instructions weren’t so confusing (Didn’t realize i needed 4 cups of heavy cream total) and I would have liked to seen a unique items list with the measurements total and THEN a broken up list like posted above. Total Time would have helped as well. I’m waiting for the cake filing to chill and have not tasted the cake yet but all I’ve got to say is that it better be good…
hi just wanted to know will this cake filling will be good for a 2 tier cake thank you I got powder geltin is that ok and how much do I put ty
this has to be the best cake i ever made…..a little complicated , but certainly worth it~~~
i swore it was to complex to make except for a special occasion, but now i’m thinking that if i just do it a couple of time it will be easier! but, then i have to eat it and that could be a problem!
It is my very favorite and so worth the work! So glad you liked it Darlene! Happy New Year 🙂
This recipe sounds wonderful!! I think I’m going to try it for my daughter’s 30th Birthday! I just want to ask a question – it calls for 2 cups of cream to soak, but you added more? So a total of 2 1/4? AND does it make just enough to ice the cake, or will I have extra icing? The reason is, I’m going to pipe roses over the whole cake and thinking I may need 2 batches of icing?
Thanks in advance!
Yes, I would count on using 2 1/4 cups of cream and I would make extra icing to pipe the roses. Hope your daughter enjoys it and has a wonderful birthday!
hi! I’m making a tall naked almond cake for a birthday on thursday & I need to fill the layers (originally it was a covered cake and so I was going to use both your filling and frosting but since I only need 1 now was wondering which you would recommend (i.e. tastes bests, holds up between the layers)
thanks!
Heather
Hi Heather! It’s been over a year and a half since I’ve made this cake so my memory is a little faded, but I think the filling would hold up fine. The gelatin really helps stabilize it and it tastes wonderful.
I am making a tall “naked” almond cake with plum jam & then I was thinking of using your frosting/filling recipes but I only need one of them so I was wondering: If you had to choose only 1, which would it be & would the filling be stable enough to hold up to the layers or would it seep out the sides without the buttercream to protect it? thanks! (need to assemble for thursday)