Frankfurt crown / Kranz cake

Happy 2012:)  I m starting this year with this delicious, rich & creamy cake.  This is most popular cake in frankfurt made with rich vanilla pudding butter cream and caramelized almonds.  Its normally made in ring mould.  Perfect cake for celebrations.

Ingredients :

For the sponge :

1. Butter - 100 gms
2. Sugar - 150 gms
3. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
4. A pinch of salt
5. Eggs - 3 medium sized
6. All purpose flour - 150 gms
7. Cornflour - 50 gms
8. Baking powder - 2 tsp

For almond praline :

1. Butter - 10 gms
2. Sugar - 60 gms
3. Peeled chopped almonds - 125 gms

For the butter cream :

1. Custard powder - 40 gms
2. Sugar - 100 gms
3. Milk - 500 ml
4. Butter - 225 gms

For decoration :

1. Red cherries
2. Strawberry jam - 3 tbsp (dissolved in water & filtered)

Method :

1.   Preheat the oven about 180 C & line up the baking pan with parchment paper.

2.   Whisk together the butter, sugar, vanilla essence until you have a smooth mixture.  Whisk in the eggs, one after the other.

3.   Mix together the flour, cornflour and baking powder and whisk into the egg and sugar mixture.

4.   Spoon the batter into the baking pan and bak it for 40 mins or until done.

For the praline :

5.   Heat the butter, sugar and almond in a pan until the mixture has turned brown.  Pour onto piece of foil and leave to cool.

For the butter cream :

6.   Make the custard following the instructions on the packet but add 100 gms of sugar and 500 ml of milk.  Leave the custard to cool, stirring occasionally.

7.   Whisk the butter into the custard mixture until smooth & soft.  Make sure the butter and cream in the room temperature 

Assembling the cake :

8.  Cut the cake horizontally into two or three layers.  Spread the jam on the bottom layer.

9.  Spread the butter cream on the bottom two layers.  Then put all the layers back on top of each other to reconstruct the cake.

10.   Coat the entire cake with the rest of butter cream and sprinkle the praline and decorate with the cherries on the top.  Refrigerate the cake for about 2 hrs before serving. 

Happy baking.