Kahlua Chocolate Almond Cake

This recipe for Kahlua Chocolate Almond Cake combines all my favorites; the flavor of coffee, chocolate, whipped cream, and toasted almonds. And the secret ingredient? It's made with olive oil, not butter.

Is it Kahlua or Kailua? Either way, it's delicious!

I don't eat dessert often, and when I do, I want it to be spectacular, or at least worth the effort and the calories.

This recipe for Kahlua Chocolate Almond Cake combines all my favorites; the flavor of coffee, chocolate, whipped cream, and toasted almonds.

All in one place, at the same time.

Or is it Kailua? Sometimes my spell check says I'm wrong with Kahlua and sometimes it doesn't. So I Googled it and came up with results for either way. So either or, it all works. 

This cake is so easy to make too. Just mix up the ingredients, bake it, cool it, and top it with whipped cream, some chopped almonds, and chocolate shavings.

Simple and did I mention spectacular?

If you don't have Kahlua, you can use some chocolate extract and espresso coffee granules to emulate the flavor. As for the ground almonds, either buy pre-made or use your food processor to pulverize some raw almonds, with their skins removed.

How to Remove Almond Skins - the fun way!

My grandparents had a house in Calimesa, CA that had almond trees. Every summer my sister, brother and I would go up for a couple of weeks.

Give the parents a break, you know.

My grandfather was a jeweler/watchmaker, so they would come to pick us up after service on Sunday, drive to Calimesa, and then my grandfather would leave the next morning and return to his store on the Miracle Mile in the Los Angeles area; not to return until the next Friday night.

Monday morning Grandma would set us kids to work, picking almonds. It was quite the adventure for us, no one else we knew was picking almonds after all. Then we would all sit with Grandma in the shade of the almond trees and crack them open, always hoping to find a double almond, two whole almonds in one shell.

"Double nuts" we would yell when we found one.

Once the almonds were shelled, Grandma would take them into the house and put them into boiling water for 1 minute, and 1 minute only. Longer than that and the almonds would get soft.

She would then drain them into the colander (always placed in a pot so she could save the water to water the plants, this whole recycle reuse thing is NOT new); and rinse them with cold water to cool them quickly. Once cooled, we would pop them out of their skins.

You can use a gentle push to get them out, or do as we did, shoot them across the room or at each other!

Fun, but not very practical.

Grandma would then roast them in the oven until they were nice and toasty, sprinkle some salt on them put them out for us to snack on...whenever we wanted one.

Or a handful.

You do not need to roast them for this recipe. But if you are making your own slivered or sliced almonds, yes then, please do.