This highly useful almond sponge cake is said to be named for the Mona Lisa (more on that later). The main difference between it and other sponge cakes is that it has whole eggs beaten into it, and not just whites.
6 room-temperature egg whites
1 ounce granulated sugar
8 ounces sliced blanched almonds, ground to powder in a food processor
8 ounces powdered sugar, sifted
6 large eggs
2.5 ounces all-purpose (AP) flour
1 1/2 ounces clarified butter, melted
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two half-sized sheet pans (jelly roll pans) with parchment and brush with melted butter.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk, whip the egg whites to soft peaks, add the sugar, and continue to whip to stiff peaks. Scrape the meringue into a bowl.
Wash the bowl of the mixer and dry it, and switch to the paddle attachment. Beat the almonds, powdered sugar and eggs on medium until they’re light and increased in volume, about 3 minutes. Turn the mixer down to low and add the flour, stirring just until it disappears.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and gently fold in the meringue. Lastly, fold in the clarified butter.
Divide the batter evenly between the two pans, spreading it as evenly as possible over the two pans. Bake for 5-7 minutes, until the layers are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and place the pans on the stove top. Cover each with a sheet of parchment, then flip the pans over on the countertop, thus turning the layers out. Carefully peel off the top layer of parchment, turn it over, and put it back on top of the layers until they’re cool.
The layers can be refrigerated for one day or frozen up to a month.
HI,thanks from your useful site,i have a question:whats the exact size of a jelly roll pan or half-sized sheet pan?
Thank you
Hello Mina! The dimensions of that pan (in the States) is 18 inches by 13 inches.
- Joe
Hi Joe,
Is it possible to convert this to a chocolate joconde? If yes, how much cocoa powder should be used?
Many thanks
Hello AGS!
I’ve been meaning to put up a chocolate version, since there are a couple of tricks to the conversion other than just adding cocoa. I’ll try to do it soon!
- Joe
Hello,
Can I replace ground almond with ANY other ingredients? In my country I could not find ground almonds anywhere. I would love to make this cake but if i totally omit this ground almond, will it effect the overall outcome/structure of the cake? For example, the taste and appearance. 8 ounce is almost a cup, it is a big amount of ground almond and I am thinking, it is a major component of the cake. Will it be a complete disaster if I totally omit this ingredient? For example, the cake will not rise, the cake will taste funny and look funny.
Thank You!
Hello Khan!
You can substitute any kind of nuts except for peanuts. Also dried legumes can be used to make up the volume if necessary. Almonds are not essential. Just keep in mind that the flavor of the ingredient will have a strong influence on the flavor of the cake. Dried bread crumbs are another option.
Good luck and get back to me on the results! Cheers,
- Joe
Hello! I have tried making joconde. Your recipe is by far the bestest joconde recipe. All the recipes I tried from your blog turns out great. I could not find almond flour neither could I find almond meal. What I did was, I boiled the almonds and took off the skin, dried the almonds then put it in a food processor and ground them up, swift them before putting them in the cake. It seemed to have worked but I know that if I were to make macaron, I will be needing good quality almond flour. My cake batter looked EXACTLY like yours. The place where I could not get it right was, I could not peel off the parchment paper from the cake. It was a mess. I was happy with the cake batter, the cake itself, when it came out of the oven, and the taste. I was devastated when I could not pull off the parchment paper from the cake. My cake literally fall apart and instead of making an elegant opera cake, I sadly have to peel off my cake and eat it off from the parchment paper.
Thank You for sharing your wonderful recipes with the rest of the world!
Wonderful and terrible news, Khan! I’m very sorry to hear what happened. Try more lubrication next time and maybe a little flour as well. But thank you for your very kind words. I’m very happy to do what I do!
Also you can make macarons with ground almonds. That’s how I made mine for the blog, since I know not everyone has access to almond flour. The look a little bumpy but they work very well!
Cheers,
- Joe
Hi Joe- great website, most intelligent and articulate recipe blogger I’ve found to date! Hubby is allergic to almonds and I wondered if I could lightly toast pine nuts and grind them?
Hi Morven!
Thank you very much! Pine nuts will be a little soft, but they’ll work I think. Let me know how it goes!
- Joe
Hello! I’m looking forward to doing this recipe in the coming days! One question, though: You call for 1 1/2 ounces of clarified butter. I wonder, is that by weight or volume?
- Charles
Hi Charles!
Wherever you see ounces on the site it’s weight.
Best of luck with the project — pleases let me know how it goes!
- Joe
Could you convert oz. to Tablespoons, teaspoons, or cup measures, as appropriate…. I would love to try this recipe, but live in the US and am only familiar with US measurements.
Also, is this the same as an Italian Almond cake?
Thanks!
Hey Ann!
Sometimes ingredients like these are a little hard to covert to volume measures (especially when you don’t have them in your kitchen at the moment). I’ll see what I can do…though in the interim I’ll add that digital scale can be had at any large grocery store for under twenty bucks — and is a great investment!
- Joe