More stuff from the refrigerated section of my "local" Ikea store. This time in dessert form and not a potato in sight. Even better? No cooking required as far as I was aware -- I really hope I got that one right and won't regret it in the next 12 hours.
Configuration
Ikea TÅRTA MANDEL Almond Cake: US$ 5.99 (CA$ 6.99)
Video
Ikea TÅRTA MANDEL Almond Cake Overview
Unboxing and Cooking
Before opening the TÅRTA MANDEL almond cake box, I moved it from the freezer to the refrigerator a few hours prior. The box was wet. It came out of the refrigerated section at the store and, while I was hoping to make it back in time before it melted, I don't think I was completely successful. That and the rain didn't help that day. Letting it sit in the freezer for a few days probably didn't make it any dryer either.
Anyway, the box was opened and inside was a flat, circular cake that wasn't wrapped in plastic. It just sat on a paper, circular plate. Luckily, nothing became glued to the box and everything slid out. There was some slight smushing on one side of the cake but nothing too bad.
As far as I knew, cooking was not necessary and I just put it onto a plate because the box was a few minutes from disintegrating. Cutting with a relatively dull serrated knife worked for me.
How was it?
My first slice of TÅRTA MANDEL was 1/4 of the cake. That may seem like a lot but it wasn't. The cake was like half an inch tall. First impressions? Just one word: exquisite. I loved it. The biggest fear I usually have with commercially produced dessert cakes is that they'll be overly sweet or too creamy. This was neither and I thought there was a good balance of flavors. Most of what I tasted was some kind of nut -- pretty obvious which type of nut, almonds, from the label on the box, but I don't know my nuts well enough to tell the difference between them.
There appeared to be four layers inside the cake: two identical pastry layers and two identical cream layers. Some shaved or shredded nuts were spread across the surface of the cake -- not a dense or thick layer. From the Ikea.com American website, the cream was supposedly a butter cream. I enjoyed it. The TÅRTA MANDEL cream, again, wasn't too sweet and there wasn't an overwhelming amount of it. What I enjoyed most was probably the pastry's texture and chewiness. That made every bite last longer. I think there were nuts in the pastry -- hence the "almond cake" name?
Thinking long and hard about the quarter slice of cake I had brought me to a disturbing conclusion: that quarter represented about CA$ 1.75. That wasn't a lot -- in terms of money or cake. Guess I could have bought two donuts or a muffin from a fast food chain.
Conclusion
I loved it? The texture and mix of flavors agreed with me. Price or quantity was a minor concern but it seemed to make the cake that little bit more special since there wasn't much of it.
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