This almond einkorn cake with vanilla almond buttercream is sweet and sophisticated – perfect for any occasion or holiday. Dress it up with seasonal fruit and toasted almond slices for a classy layer cake.

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almond einkorn cake in 4 layers with white frosting, decorated with heart-shaped chocolate dipped strawberry pieces on top and toasted sliced almonds around the bottom. — This style cake is known as a “naked cake” – (I don’t make this stuff up) – meaning it’s not fully frosted on the sides.

Ingredients for Almond Einkorn Cake

All-Purpose Einkorn Flour

You can buy milled einkorn flour or whole berries that you mill yourself. I purchase my milled all-purpose einkorn flour, by Jovial Foods, from several places: Thrive Market, Amazon, and my local grocery store (I’m so pleased they carry it!). Please note this recipe is for the all-purpose einkorn, not the whole wheat.

Baking Powder & Salt

I always add a little salt to my sweet baked goods as it helps to bring out the flavor. I like to use Redmond Real Salt in all my cooking and baking. Baking powder helps the cake rise.

Butter & Sugar

Creaming the butter and sugar together with a mixer is such an important part of forming the texture of the cake and keeping it light. I love real butter – it just can’t be beat (see what I did there…)! Definitely use unsalted. If you can, I recommend using a grass-fed butter like Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter. If you’d like to substitute a dairy-free butter, as I frequently have to do, I highly recommend using Earth Balance Baking Sticks (I prefer the soy-free version). They perform quite well in baked goods.

Whole Milk

I call for whole milk I this recipe, but if you want to use a lower fat milk or a non-dairy milk you are welcome to do so. Just be aware it may slightly alter the texture or baking time.

Eggs

Did you know that you should weigh your eggs in the shells when measuring ingredients? That is if you’re going by weight of course. Three large eggs, as called for in this recipe, are roughly 184g in-shell.

Vanilla and Almond Extracts

Definitely use pure extracts if you can – it makes a huge difference in the taste of your cake! If you can’t have almonds, just use 2 tsp of vanilla instead.

Ingredients for the Buttercream Frosting

The vanilla almond buttercream frosting is a powdered (confectioner’s) sugar based frosting. Again, if you can’t have real butter I have found the Earth Balance Buttery Spread works well for this, or alternatively you can substitute palm oil shortening for the butter and a dairy-free milk to achieve a non-dairy frosting.

How to Make Almond Einkorn Cake

Prep your pans

To achieve a tall layer cake I used two 6-inch round cake pans. Each 6-inch cake will be split in half horizontally resulting in 4 layers of cake.

Lining your cake pans with circles of parchment paper is key in ensuring your cakes release cleanly from the pans. Butter or grease your pans first, line with parchment circles, then grease the parchment.

Creaming the Butter and Sugar

Did you know that the process of creaming the butter and sugar is actually important in determining how light your cake is? When you cream the two together, the sugar beats air into the butter. This creates air bubbles that capture the gases released by the baking powder, keeping the cake light with a finer crumb.

Alternating the Dry Mixture and Milk

When adding the dry mixture and milk to the mixer you should alternate dry and wet small amounts at a time, ending with dry. This process keeps the batter light and fluffy by coating the flour and preventing over-mixing and over-development of gluten.

Making the Frosting

You may not need all the milk for your frosting, depending on how thick or thin you would like it. If you want it even thinner than half a cup gets you, feel free to add a little more. If you can’t have almonds, you can simply leave it out and double the vanilla extract for a vanilla buttercream recipe.

Decorating the Almond Einkorn Cake

The Almonds

I purchased my sliced almonds already toasted just to save myself some time. You can easily toast your own – just toss them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 350F for several minutes until lightly golden. (Stir as needed.)

I love the look of the almonds at the bottom of this cake, plus they also taste great and add a nice texture! Too many almonds on the sides, I thought, would hide the layers of the cake I want to show, but you’re welcome to use more almonds and completely cover the sides of the cake. That would be really tasty too!

The Fruit

Since I’m decorating this for Valentine’s Day at the time of writing this recipe, I decided to decorate the top with strawberry hearts. To make a strawberry heart, simply do the following:

Cut the top (greenery) off the strawberry.
Slice the strawberry in half vertically.
Cut a ‘V’ notch out of the top center of each slice.
Remove the pointy corners at the outside edges of the heart.
Save the strawberry scraps in a bag in the fridge or freezer for smoothies, ice cream toppings, a snack…anything!

The very center strawberries have been half dipped in chocolate. I melted some semi-sweet chocolate chips and a partial bar of dark chocolate in a double boiler, then dipped half of each strawberry in it. Let them cool/dry on waxed paper, then pop them on your cake!

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