The Day of the Almond Gateau

An almond gateau. A spongy cookie-crust of almonds stuffed with a light chocolatey cream. After a week with 33 elves, I needed that. Nevermind that it was made in honor of my husband by my baker-daughter elf for Father's Day. I was more in need of it than he was!Tuesday I came home and did something I never do - I napped! I was wondering if I was starting to get too old to work with elves. Until my two 18-year old directing interns told me they went home and napped every afternoon after a morning with the elves! Vindicated.

My daughter was enchanted by a photo in a baking book. (Perfect Baking). We did some substitutions but the gateau was a sweet end to the week, a sweet offering to her father and a grand refortication for me as I prepare to face the elves tomorrow.
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My daughter can be a worker-bee elf. She can also get mad at her creations and threaten to throw them out if they do not behave. (That's an Italian gene - Aunt Fay routinely threatened to throw out the Leg of Lamb for Easter if people did not arrive on time. She would only serve it rare.) Happily, the gateau behaved and was not threatened with the trash can.

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Gateau:

4 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup ground almonds

5-1/2 tablespoons flour

butter for greasing

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1/2 cup sliced almonds - for presentation

confectioner's sugar - for presentation

Chocolate Cream Filling

3-1/2 oz semi-sweet chocolate

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

10 oz heavy cream

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Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Whisk eggs and sugar together till light and foamy (about 10 minutes). Fold in ground almonds and flour. Pour into two lightly greased 7-inch cake pans. Sprinkle 1/2 cup almonds over 1 cake and bake for 15-20 minutes. They should be springy when you touch them and the edges will pull away from the sides. Let cool in pans.

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Filling: Melt chocolate in double boiler. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Let cool. Meanwhile, whip cream until it just holds it shape and fold into the chocolate mixture. Cool.

Put the cake (without the extra almonds) on a plate. Spread chocolate filling over it and let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes to one hour. Place almond topped cake on top of filling and put in fridge for one hour. Put extra almonds on top of cake and dust with confectioner's sugar and serve.

The chocolate oozed beautifully (if you like oozing chocolate). Although it does look like it's teasing her - sticking its tongue out - daring us to throw it away if it didn't behave. But we had tasted the chocolate filling. It could do no wrong. Impossibly light for a filling containing heavy cream and just lightly-chocolated. We could easily have just had just the filling for dessert! (But the crunchy, spongey almond gateau complements the chocolate perfectly.)

Elves are workers. They do what they're told. And so are my elves, Enthuhsiastic and talented with no needs for breaks or lunch. When the time "off" comes, the staff is surrounded by elves - begging for attention. When you mention one must stand at the "corner of the table" to be seen in the scene, four hands go up and you are told, "My grandmother lives on a corner." "My dog eats the corner garden." And you are now in for 10 minutes of "corner" stories.

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When lined up in the theatre aisles for an exercise, I explained their casting and how the day would go. They stood patiently and looked at me and nodded in all the right places. When all was figured out, I told them they may now sit down. And they did. En masse. In the aisles.

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I looked up from my script and there they were - on the floor. In the aisles next to the seats. They take direction well.

And my proud 5'11" baker-elf. Who is coming to terms with her baking and not threatening her cakes anymore.

And so ended my first Father's Day without my Dad. But he was shining his light on us. On his grandchildren and on the gateau. He would have loved it.