Almond Choc Chip Cake

After one long month of marking English Language scripts, yesterday it finally came to a conclusive end.  Sighs of relief could be heard and constant chatting by my fellow examiners were rife; all planning what to do with the remainder of our holidays.  It also marked something special at this juncture of my service in the teaching profession and as always, I am happy to share goodies with my friends.  As usual what better way to make friends smile than to offer them some home-cooked food, and in this case I made for them, this Almond Choc Chip Cake!  Well, the recipe called for a 9-inch cake tin which I didn't have, so I made twelve huge cupcakes instead!   I am happy to note here that one of my colleagues even asked for seconds!  Fortunately there was an extra one left for him!  As with any other cake recipes, I especially adore this one because it is all in one!

8oz self-raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2oz ground almond

4 large eggs

8oz butter

8oz caster sugar

1tsp vanilla essence

4oz chocolate chips

2oz white chocolate, melted

2oz plain chocolate, melted

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.  Put in the ground almond, eggs, butter, sugar and vanilla essence and beat until smooth and creamy (I always do this manually because the sign to stop beating the cake mixture for me, is when my hand becomes tired! LOL)  Slowly fold in half of the chocolate chips and spoon the batter into twelve paper cups then top each cup with the remaining chocolate chips.  Bake in a 180 C oven for about 20 - 25 minutes.  

Once cooked, cool the cupcakes completely.  Put the melted chocolate into a piping bag and pipe long strips diagonally across the cakes followed by the melted white chocolate.

This is a moist and brittle cake and I assure you, it doesn't last long!