Best Marzipan Cake Ever!

The other half recently baked the most amazing cake for me that I have ever tried. It is spongy, moist and so full of flavour. It must be the ultimate marzipan cake. Some people don't like marzipan, but the marzipan flavour is not overpowering in any way. It's more like an almond favour with benefits. 
The marzipan in the cake, however, helps giving the cake its characteristics and its moistness.

Ingredients:
250 grams butter - preferably unsalted (softened)
250 grams marzipan (softened)
150 grams caster sugar
¼ teaspoon almond essence
1 tsp vanilla powder / or seeds from a vanilla pod
6 large eggs
150 grams all-purpose wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda

You will need a 25cm / 10 inch springform tube pan or patterned ring mould, buttered and floured.
Preheat oven to 170ºC/gas mark 3. Chop the butter and marzipan to make them easier to break down, and put them in a bowl and use an electrical mixer, with the sugar. Mix until combined and pretty well smooth. Add almond essence and vanilla powder/seeds, process again, then break the eggs one at a time, mixing again each time. Add the flour and baking soda, mix yet again, and then pour the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping the sides and bottom with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 50 minutes, but check from 40. Then, when the cake looks golden and cooked and a cake-tester or fine skewer comes out cleanish, remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin before turning out. 

The fact that you could easily get 12 slices out of this is another reason why it comes in useful when you've got people coming for dinner or tea. That it keeps for a good week is another point in its favour (if you can keep off it!); you don't have to be fiddling around with all the courses just before lift-off. 

It's really a variation over the pound cake. But so much more interesting than the original. It may cost a few pounds to bake it, but its yumminess guarantees that you will gain a few pounds once you start eating it. Not a healthy creation, but it's heaven on a plate. Go on: get baking!

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