A few weeks ago I hosted the Sons and Daughters of Hawley’s Mud Party. This annual event celebrates spring as we experience it in New England.

Some years we have snow on the ground. (In fact, last year the party had to be postponed because of icy weather.) Some years we have only the mud for which the party is named.

This year in early April we had a little of both. I had been hoping to open up my porch to provide extra seating, but in the end the weather was too cold to use that room. We put the dessert table out there but didn’t linger in the lower temperatures.

As I recall, the Mud Party originally featured only foods that resembled mud, many of them chocolate based.

One year I prepared a chocolate mousse that looked a lot like the conditions outdoors; it had lots of brown and just a little white. (I now realize that I should have thought to throw in some cookie crumbs to represent the gravel on roads and driveways in mud season.)

As time has gone by, the party has morphed into a potluck that embraces foods of all types and colors. There is usually something chocolate-y; this year Molly Pyle Stejskal made a delicious Guinness chocolate cake with cream-cheese frosting, and Juanita Clark prepared a creamy chocolate pie.

As hostess, I was in charge of something that could count as a main course. I baked a half ham and threw together some macaroni and cheese. We had a vast array of vegetables, deviled eggs (always appropriate!), several salads, a little pizza, and some quinoa.

Dessert was key as it often is when Hawleyites congregate. In addition to Molly’s cake and Juanita’s pie, we enjoyed some chocolate-chip banana bread courtesy of Serra Root.

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All the desserts were delicious. The one that was gobbled up fastest, however, was Lorraine McCarthy’s almond cake.

I had been given advance warning that the cake would be coming to the party. I was talking to the Sons and Daughters’ secretary, Suzy Groden, and she mentioned that she and her partner had run into Lorraine (aka Rainey) at the grocery store.

Rainey had apparently been uncertain what to bring to the Mud Party. Suzy said she had eliminated that uncertainty on the spot. “We don’t have any more of your almond cake in our freezer,” she told Rainey. “You should bring that.”

I asked Rainey about the cake, which I too had enjoyed in the past. It’s a dense, one-layer affair that serves a crowd because it’s so rich that no one needs more than a sliver. In fact, now that I think about it, it should probably be called a torte rather than a cake. That name always implies extra richness to me.

The recipe card Rainey gave me called it a tea cake. I’m sticking with torte.

I asked Rainey about the torte. She stated that she had obtained the recipe from Maureen Flaherty of Charlemont, who had in turn received it from someone else.

“I couldn’t tell you where it’s from, actually,” Rainey said. “It’s a very easy recipe, so people have just gravitated to it. I knock it out quickly.”

She praised the simplicity of the ingredients. There aren’t a lot of them, she observed, and “it’s stuff that you usually have in the house.”

Rainey noted that she makes the recipe at least eight times a year. It’s a favorite with family members, who invariably ask her to contribute it to gatherings. “And I always bring it for the election bake sales,” she told me.

Like many recipes, this one can vary from person to person. My neighbor Susan Purdy often brings it — or a very similar cake — to church for coffee hour. Susan slices the almonds on top of the torte much more finely than Rainey does.

The change in slicing imparts a different consistency and therefore a slightly different flavor. I couldn’t tell you which version I like better. For one thing, I don’t want to start a feud among Hawleyites. More importantly, however, they are both quite delectable.

Here is the simple recipe.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter at room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons almond extract

1 pinch salt

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sliced almonds

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease and flour a round cake pan (8 or 9 inches in diameter). If you want to make removal even easier, you may use a springform pan.

Cream together the butter and the sugar. Beat in the eggs. Stir in the extract, the salt, and the flour.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Sprinkle the almonds on top. Bake the cake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the torte is a light golden brown.

Let the cake sit for 10 to 15 minutes before removing it from the pan. Serves 10 to 12, sliced thinly.

Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.