[Edited to include pictures]

Truth be told that I nearly gave the cake a miss. One because the name suggested a cake with some salty/sweet interplay and I ain’t a big fan. But a couple of pages later. Heck, I could do this in a few hours.

All in the weekend where I taught a Cookies class, played futsal in a league and emerged as champions, visited a cousin at a hospital and her new cute baby after she had a very serious complication and packing for my meeting trip to Indonesia. There!

Anyhow. I am at Pekan Baru, Indonesia at the moment attending a meeting that’s to start in about an hour’s time and should be flying home to Malaysia tomorrow.

Well. I meant to write a post on it. Had a few pictures to upload and realised that my camera cable in not in my bag and my notebook doen’t recognise the memory card. Bummer. Imagine, can you?

Well. True, I would have passed by this cake if I didn’t join the group. But I did and it tasted a little not-my-favourite.

It was easy enough. I only have blanched almonds so my cake turned out whiter than Marie’s. That was ground with a couple of tablespoons of sugar. I think I didn’t grind it fine enough as the almonds was grainy in the cake. But I thought about pasty almond and that stopped me right in my track.

The eggwhites whipped up beautifully, all thick and glossy and the red, fireengine kitchenaid did all the work of the 20 mins of whisking.

I was so glad I found my 9 x 3 pan as the batter almost came up to the top of the pan. I did the parchment and thought it did look professional indeed, like I had a reason for that. And not merely following instruction. Heh!

Batter was runny but thick. I had high hopes when I saw it rising in the oven, almost to the top.

But after 30 mins, and I took it out of the pan in its parchment. Before my eyes, it sank a little. Aliya, my daughter touched the top of the cake but it didn’t spring back. It felt spongy and stuck to your finger. I pricked the cake and it’s done.

I now understand why it’s a pinch cake. You can’t slice this without messing up the cake or the knife. Pinching is the way to go. But I was going to a hospital and I sliced them up in a tupperware.

Verdict. Mine was fluffy at the top and became dense at the bottom. Mine sunk in the middle and if it weren’t for the tall parchment, it would’ve sunk right in.

The almond taste was nice but grainy and crunchy which was great. But it was a plain cake. I didn’t have raspberries and cream and that didn’t help. My kids just pinched the top of the cake and it didn’t have a lot of takers at the hospital, among aunties.

Hmm. I love sponge cakes but this is not high on my will-do-again list.

p/s will edit and include pictures soon.