SPANISH ALMOND SPONGE

Preheat your oven to 180 deg C . Beat 75 gm of room temp butter / marg together with 180gm of castor sugar and 1 tsp of finely grated orange zest , until pale and fluffy . In a separate small bowl beat together 2 eggs . Slowly beat in the eggs a little at a time . In another bowl mix together 90gm of plain flour with 90 gm of ground almond , now fold the flour mix into wet mixture until every thing is evenly combined . Fold in 1 tbs of brandy . You will need a 19cm (7 and 1/2 inch ) round cake pan , greased and lined . Pour the batter into the prepared pan , sprinkle with 30 gm of flaked almonds . Bake for 40 minutes or until skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean . Remove from the oven and leave to rest in the pan for 5 minutes , then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely . Once the cake is cooled , slice the cake horizontally in half . For the filling , whip 150 ml of cream with 2 tbs of castor sugar and 1 dsp of brandy into soft peaks. Now fold into the cream mixture 45 gm of flaked almonds . So you now have to sandwich the the cake layers with the almond cream filling . Drizzle the top of the cake with honey and another layer of almond flakes ( 50 gm ) and a light dusting of icing sugar . We will be preparing this sponge cake in class.