Is There A Substitute For Ground Almonds In The Honey Cake With Dates And Apples?

Our answer

Nigella's Honey Cake With Dates And Apples is a sweet, moist and slightly sticky cake that is good at any time of year. The cake includes ground almonds (almond meal or almond flour) as the oil in the almonds helps to keep the cake moist and the almonds stop the texture from being too heavy.

If you don't have ground almonds then you could use another ground nut, such as hazelnuts or walnuts (as the cake contains walnuts). If you need to grind the nuts yourself then we would suggest using a food processor. Roughly chop the nuts in the food processor then add the dark muscovado (dark brown) sugar and pulse the mixture until the nuts are fairly finely chopped. Do this carefully as the nuts can become greasy if they are over processed. Add this mixture to the oil and honey and omit adding ground nuts to the flour. Unfortunately we would not recommend using extra flour instead of the ground almonds as this will change the texture of the cake.