This post is dedicated to a fellow blogger friend who is going through a hard time. She can’t have gluten so here we have a grain and gluten free cake. And it’s yellow. Not just slightly yellow, but “Did you use food dye in that?” yellow. Is it weird that yellow things make me happy? I hope this makes her happy too! And there’s lemon involved. How could anything lemony not cheer you up? I dare you to eat this cake and frown. Or cry. You just won’t succeed.
In continuing with my, “It’s my birthday (week) and I’m going to post naughty things” theme, I give you this. It has butter. I normally use olive oil instead of butter but I just didn’t want a cake that tasted like olive oil and lemon. But it seems that butter is not really this evil thing I perceive it as. I just prefer olive oil. Nobody disputes the healthful properties of that!
And then there’s white sugar. I originally made this cake with white sugar because again, I thought coconut sugar with it’s slightly caramel-like taste might be strange with lemon. But my pal doesn’t use white sugar, so I remade it today with coconut sugar (and she’s coincidentally the one who told me about coconut sugar), just to make sure it’d work. And the verdict? Tastes the same, but the cake is brown and not yellow. No funky taste. And I just realized that the egg yolks over here are normally pretty orange and not yellow. Maybe that helped with the nice color.
And because almond flour appears to be expensive in the US and I had a feeling people would ask if they had to use almond flour, I made the second cake with blanched almonds ground up in the food processor. The texture isn’t as fine as with almond flour, but it’s still nice. And you don’t get the yummy crunchy crust-like stuff on the side of the cake, but maybe that had more to do with the coconut sugar. I also used lemon juice in place of limoncello and I couldn’t really tell a difference.
So the traditional torta caprese, which I have yet to make, is made with chocolate. This one uses white chocolate but weirdly enough, the chocolate flavor isn’t really apparent. I can’t really even tell it’s in there. And although I thought this was lemony, it wasn’t extremely lemony. Normally I don’t do subtle. If I want something lemony, I want the lemon flavor to punch me in the face and not just be hanging around in the background. But it worked here.
Both my version and the original version look a bit underdone in the middle, but I liked it that way. It was great. :) You could leave it in there a little longer if you like. And you don’t have to refrigerate the cake, but it tastes much better that way. People LOVED this cake and didn’t even realize it was grain-free (although I’m pretty sure it’d be clear to anyone who bakes). Just saying. :)
This recipe halves wonderfully! What you see above is only half the cake. And the edge of the cake is SO yummy. Kind of crispy / chewy.
Grain-free Italian Lemon Almond Cake (Torta Caprese Bianca)
- Prep Time:
- Cook Time:
- Ready in:
- Yield: One 10" cake
Ingredients
- 320 grams almond flour (not almond meal) or blanched almonds, ground into almond flour
- 200 grams (a little over 1 cup) white chocolate chips
- 2 tablespoons cream or milk (I used 1.5% milk)
- 180 grams (1 stick + 4.5 tbsp) butter, softened
- 130 grams (about 1 cup) granulated sugar or coconut sugar*
- zest of 4 lemons, about 2 tablespoons
- 4 large eggs, separated
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
- 40 grams (about 2 tablespoons) of limoncello or lemon juice
- powdered sugar as garnish, optional
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F / 176°C and grease a 10" / 26cm pan or line it with parchment paper. If using blanched almonds instead of almond flour, process them in the food processor until they're pretty finely ground. If you grind them too much, they'll release oil and become almond butter.
- Combine the white chocolate and milk / cream in a microwave safe bowl.
- Heat in 30 second increments and stir after every 30 seconds. Set aside to cool while you prepare the rest. Beat the butter with 100 grams of sugar and beat until fluffy.
- Add the lemon zest, egg yolks and lemon extract and beat until well combined. Then add the almond flour / ground almonds and the melted chocolate. Add the limoncello / lemon juice and beat until combined.
- In a separate bowl with spotlessly clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 30 grams of sugar to the egg white mixture. Fold the egg whites into the almond batter until well combined. Spoon the batter into the greased pan and bake for 40 - 45 minutes. If making half the cake, use a 7" / 18cm pan and bake for 30 minutes. The cake will puff up in the oven, but when cooling, it'll fall back down.
- Let it cool completely in the pan and then invert the cake onto a plate, and then flip that back into the pan or onto another plate (so that it's not upside down). Sprinkle on some powdered sugar if desired, but only before serving.
Notes
- If using coconut sugar, blend in a coffee grinder first so that it's basically like powdered coconut sugar. I'd be worried about how well non-grinded coconut sugar would do with the egg whites. I'm guessing not well. And please note the above comment about how using coconut sugar turns the cake the brown! It's just not possible to make a bright yellow cake with this dark sugar.
- This recipe originally used 200 grams of sugar. I used 200 grams in the first cake and only 130 in the second and didn't notice much of a difference, but I'm used to not using so much sugar. Feel free to use up to 200 grams.
Adapted from Dolce Mania - Torta Caprese Bianca
30 comments on "Grain-free Italian Lemon Almond Cake (Torta Caprese Bianca)" — Add one!
I made this today and it was so good. All thre of my picky eater kids kept stealing pieces! Making it again this weekend. Thanks for this great recipe!
I live in Italy now and had tried this cake at a friends house. I looked up the recepie mentioning some of the main ingredients and your recipe popped up. I am so happy to have found it. One question I have is how deep should the pan be?
I would appreciate a response.
My pan was 5 centimeters but the cake isn't really so tall. A smaller pan (any typical cake pan) would work! I hope the cake works out for you. I'd love to hear how it comes out. :) And if you speak Italian, you can view the original recipe at the source (at the bottom of the post). Good luck!
Hi! So happy that you tried and liked the cake. :) It is pretty dense and not fluffy, but I don't think this type of cake is supposed to fluffy. But you could be right about the butter. I'm happy that you and your boyfriend were able to have this as a lower carb goodie! Thanks for leaving feedback. Comments like this always make my day. :)
This is the first time I have ever baked with anything other than regular flour. My boyfriend and I are on a low carb diet and were craving baked goods. Then I came upon your blog and saw this cake. I made it exactly how you said except I accidentally melted the butter and I also used Splenda instead of regular sugar. The cake turned out so yummy! It ended up having a pound cake/ cheesecake texture to it. It was very dense, I think it was the melting of the butter. Thank you do much for turning me on to this type of baking. Keep the recipes coming!!
Georgia – Thank you!
Baltic Maid – Yay, a happy cake! That's what I was going for. :)
Michael – Thank you very much! I don't have many grain-free recipes but I throw one in every now and then. I quite like them. :)
I keep scrolling through recipes on here and they all look so good! Happy to see this is grain free!
Ohhh, such a happy cake!!! I love it!
This is such a beautiful summer cake, Erin! Can't believe it's grain free, too. Very impressive!
Helen – I hope you like it! And I hope you're able to cope with your gluten intolerance. I used to think, "Yuck… why would I make something without normal flour?" but it turns out that most of the stuff has been really good! At least with almond flour. I've never used those special GF flours.
What a nice thing to do for your friend! I recently discovered I am gluten intolerant, too. I can't wait to try this!!
Brandi – Thanks! :)
this looks so delicious! that color is just gorgeous.
Sarah – You have to get some! It's good stuff. It doesn't taste like coconut at all but if you read up on it, it seems to be "healthier." Or at least be lower on the glycemic index. :)
I love the crunchy edge of this cake…and its bright yellow color! I've never baked with coconut sugar before, but definitely want to try!
liloudublin – Oh, then I'll try it like that next time! I just don't want people to try with oil and then it comes out a disaster. Almond flour is so expensive and it seems so finicky, unlike wheat flour where using oil is no problem instead of butter. Thank you for the tip and I hope you like the cake!
In Italy they often make this cake with butter AND olive oil (a third of oil instead of the butter) just to help.
I have to try with the coconut sugar i have in my pantry Thank You!
Miryam – Sorry I didn't see this until now! And I think it's way too heavy to eat all at once. Some normal wheat flour cakes have that problem, but I guess the almonds just make it impossible to chow down on a whole cake. I hope you like it! :)
Oh I did not know about that. Great advice. In that case I will just use butter then. Since I will be only making half the cake that would be fine, plus is not like we eat so much butter all the time anyways or like one of us is going to eat the entire cake all at once :-)
I will definitely use butter then! Thanks.
Monsterscircus – Mange tak! :) Jag bodde två år i Sverige men talar no Danish. I'm happy you like the cake. :)
Miryam – I'm happy you're so enthusiastic about this cake but I'm really, really worried about using olive oil in it. Almond flour, at least for me, hasn't been like wheat flour. With wheat flour, I sub olive oil for butter all the time and it's fine. But if an almond flour recipe calls for butter, and I use oil anyway, it doesn't seem to work. I'm guessing the cake will be a soggy mess. :( Maybe even 1/4 cake would be better if you want to try olive oil? I hope you get your almond flour soon! I just don't want you to waste it on something that might not work, especially since almond flour is so expensive! Or how about this: I'll make this again in the next few weeks with olive oil and let you know if it works. Yeah? :)
Heidi – Thanks! It is dense but not really fudgy.
Chung-Ah – Thank you. :) I kind of wish the white chocolate was more obvious. That's the only thing I'd change!
Kris – Thank a bunch! But I usually make things 100% whole grain so I'm not exactly a good place for gluten free desserts. But there are soon!
Becca – You really can't taste it. It's not really like a brownie, but a really dense cake. That's kind of gooey, but not gooey like a brownie. It's so difficult to explain! I'm happy this cake makes you smile. Thanks. :)
I'm not a fan of white chocolate at all, but this cake looks so sunny and yellow and happy. You're right, imjust want to smile when I see this cake. It looks more like a brownie than a cake, so ooey and gooey :)
Love your blog and your recipes :) It is the perfect place to find all sort of gluten free desserts recipes :)
I seriously love EVERYTHING about this cake, especially those added white chocolate chips!
Oooh, I love how this looks. I don't even know how describe it, except maybe fudgy? But in a non-chocolate way obviously :P It looks dense and delicious. I love lemon desserts!
This cake looks really yummy!! I love the fact that it has almond flour. I am on the hunt to bake things with almond flour so I went to purchase some at amazon, because I want to get it in bulk so that it is cheaper, and they run out :-( So I am going to wait until they get it again and this cake is going to be on my to do list.
I am glad you noted about the cake being under done a tad because by looking at the pictures you can really tell and I was going to ask you about it. I like my cakes baked all the way :-) so I will bake it for an extra 10-15 minutes when I do and half the recipe like you suggested and just make one smaller cake, and for sure I will use olive oil….sorry…you know me!!
What a Big heart you have! Very lovely cake, I also love to use almond flour when I bake, it makes the cake more yummy I Think. But it's also expensive here i Denmark, so I also does your trick with grinding. Thanks for the recepie it sounds amazing
Katrina – Thanks!
Kathryn – Thank you so much for that comment. When I sat down to write this post, I thought it'd take about 30 minutes but I somehow spent three hours on it. Ridiculous. But I'm happy someone actually spent the time to read it! Thanks again. :) Oh and I've found coconut sugar in Asian food shops but I've read that they sometimes add white sugar to that. The stuff I found looked a bit… dodgy. I also found it in organic shops at a laughable price. I think 26 euro/kg. I recently found it in what I think you call a cash and carry for a lot less. I quickly looked up the shipping price to the UK but it looks too expensive just for some sugar. Ah well. I tried! I suppose you're also headed to bed soon so good night. :)
Amy – Good to hear that I'm not alone! I mean, brown is boring. And so normal. But yellow? It's perfect for a bad day. :)
this looks just delicious! i love anything with lemon, so i know i'd adore this. hello things make me happy too!
Such a fascinating post, thank you! You explain all your choices so well and it's fascinating to hear how they affected the final cake. I'm on the hunt for coconut sugar here but haven't had any luck yet :(
This cake is stunning! Love this idea!