Pignoli Almond Cake

A dense pound cake with lemon, vanilla bean and ground almond, topped with salted pine nuts. Adapted from _Italian Easy_ by Rose Gray and Ruth Rodgers; reprinted at Serious Eats by Caroline Russock. http://bit.ly/cdoJX3

• Ready In: 1 hr 10 mins
• Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 18  tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing pan (2 1/4 sticks)
• 2  vanilla beans
• 1 1⁄4 cups  superfine sugar
• 1  lemon, juice of
• 4  eggs
• 6  tablespoons pine nuts
• 3⁄4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1  cup  ground almonds
• 2  lemons, zest of, finely grated
• 1⁄4 teaspoon table salt

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350°F Liberally grease an 8.5x4.5x2.5 loaf pan and line with parchment.
2. Bring butter to room temperature in the work bowl of a stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl). Split the vanilla beans and scrape out the seeds; add to butter. Add sugar and lemon juice and beat on medium using paddle attachment until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating to combine after each addition.
3. Chop half the pine nuts coarsely and set aside. Stir together flour and almonds. Add 1/3 of the dry mixture, and beat just to combine. Add another 1/3 of the mixture and repeat. Add the remaining dry ingredients with the lemon zest and chopped pine nuts and stir to combine.
4. Toss remaining pine nuts with salt. Spoon batter into prepared pan, top with salted pine nuts and bake 60 minutes, or until a skewer or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan.