8 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Using an electric blender, cream egg yolks with sugar.

Add flour to egg and sugar mixture (a little at a time).

In a separate bowl, add salt to egg whites and then beat egg whites with sugar until stiff.

Fold beaten egg whites to the flour, sugar and egg yolk mixture.

Divide batter in two (or three) portions and pour into 8 inch cake pans.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes.

Cool before removing.

This recipe was adapted from a recipe found in Alexander Lenard's book titled "The Fine Art of Roman Cooking." The book was written nearly fifty years ago and is now out of print. The author, a German chef, investigated the cookery of Rome in the late 1950s and produced this book. All of the recipes in his book are traditional and come very close to what the parents of many second generation North Americans do (or did) at home. However, something must have been lost in the translation (The book was first published in German) because a quite number of his recipes don't quite work (the measurements are wrong). For this particular recipe Alexander Lenard suggests 6 eggs (not 8) but I found I couldn't complete this recipe with that amount as the batter would be far too thick. By using 8 eggs I found this to be an excellent recipe for "Pane di Spagne." It's not only delicious, but also easy to do. I divided the batter in two, but I should have divided it in three. This batter because it uses "cake flour" and not regular flour rises quite high. This recipe makes for an excellent layered cake. Layered with traditional Italian custard it comes close to what you can get in an Italian pastry shop. Alexander Lenard notes in his book that "Pane di Spagne" is a translation for "Spanish bread." However, I did not see this mentioned anywhere else. Most North American cookbooks (and Italian ones too!) describe "pane di Spagne" [pan di Spagna] as a sponge cake. Photo: Mary Melfi

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