A while back, I stumbled upon a Huffington Post article about the greatest cake in the country. Because most things food intrigue me, I clicked the link to discover this wonderful cake is made right in my backyard: Pittsburgh.

Let me start by saying I don't go to Pittsburgh nearly as often as I should. Yes, it has this booming culinary scene with some of the greatest food in the area. Yes, it's fairly close. And yes, there is so much to do. But, I have this need to show off my home state and tell the stories here that aren't being told, so I tend to travel three hours south to find a little hole in the wall in West Virginia, rather than head just a bit north to Pittsburgh to get some of the tastiest food I've ever had. And, I stick by that decision. For the most part.

BUT, I do have quite the Pittsburgh-to-try list building up. Lots of friends go to these incredible places and say "oh gosh, you have to try ____!" So I have this list of places I've been wanting to go, but I hadn't made it a priority. Until recently. My friend Heather and I took the day off from work (much deserved, btw) and headed up to the Steel City for a culinary crawl.

Our first stop of the day was at Prantl's Bakery to get our mitts on the best cake in America: Burnt Almond Torte. Cake for breakfast. We went to the downtown location, as it was near our other stops for today. After finally finding parking (ooooof), we headed inside to gaze at the goodies hidden behind glass cases.

The burnt almond torte was available in mini cupcake size or longer loaf sizes. I opted for the larger option (duh), which was just a few bucks. I grabbed a fork and began to dig in.

Our “Burnt Almond Torte”, which was conceived by Henry Prantl after a trip to California. There was an almond glut the year he went and the Almond Board was trying to get bakers to use almonds in new and inspiring ways. Henry picked up a few ideas and brought them back to Pittsburgh where he refined them into our current recipe for “Burnt Almond Torte”, a unique and addictive dessert. If you’ve never had one, you really do have to try one. If you have had one, you know what we’re talking about!

It's a very light cake frosted in buttercream with thin slivers of sugared almonds. It's pretty simple, conceptually. But the execution is flawless. So light, so sweet, but also a nice crunch and slight saltiness. It's the stuff dreams are made of.

The only thing that could make this better is a cup of coffee underneath the sunshine. Stay tuned for the next blog post.

Grade: A