Carrot Cake, French Style

Ingredients8 tablespoons (115g) butter, salted or unsalted, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups (250g) sugar
pinch of salt
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups (225g) toasted almonds
2/3 cup (90g) flour
1/4 cup, packed, (40g) finely grated carrot

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F. Butter two shallow 10" cake pans and line each with a circle of parchment paper. Then lightly butter the top of each circle of paper.
   
2. Beat the butter, sugar, and salt until smooth.
   
3. Meanwhile, pulverize the nuts and flour in a food processor or blender until relatively fine, but not powdery. If you don't have a machine, simply chop the nuts by hand and toss them with the flour.
   
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
   
5. Stir in the ground nut mixture and the carrots, mixing just until smooth.
   
6. Divide the batter into the pans, smooth it evenly, and bake for 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
   
7. Cool, then release the cake from the pans and cut in wedges to serve.

Notes: This is a rather unusual cake. More like a flat griddle-cake. Next time I might try it with one less egg and maybe a bit more flour since I think the recipe was written with American flour in mind, and French flour is quite a bit softer.