250 grams (about 8-4/5 unces) sugar
100 grams (about 3-1/2 ounces)extra fine flour
50 grams (about 1-2/3 ounces) sweet almonds, with three bitter almonds, blanched
9 eggs, separated (whites, beaten stiff)
lemon zest

Equipment needed
Baking pan greased with butter and dusted with flour mixed with icing sugar

Blanch the almonds and dry thoroughly in the sun or on the fire.

Crush with a tablespoon of sugar until very fine, and then mix with the flour.

Put the remaining sugar and the egg yolks together in a copper or brass bowl.

Put the bowl over a low flame, and beat the sugar and egg yolks with a whisk for more than a quarter of an hour.

Remove from the flame and pour in the flour that has been prepared with the almonds and the lemon zest.

After you have mixed all of this together for awhile, add the egg whites, thoroughly beaten, and blend in all together gently,

Put the mixture in a baking pan greased with butter and dusted with flour mixed with icing sugar and bake.

The recipe in this entry was taken from "La Scienza in Cucina e L'Arte di Mangiar Bene manuale Pratico per le Famiglie" compilato da Pellegrino Artusi. The book was first published in 1891. Since then many Italian editions have been published. Olga Ragusa's selection of recipes from Pellegrino Artusi's famous cookbook, titled "The Italian Cook Book," can be found in its entirety at www.archive.org (It's free). The University of Toronto recently published a new English edition of Pellegrino Artusi's "Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well"; many of the recipes in this edition can be found at www.books.google.ca.... P.S. I tried this recipe and found it to be exceptionally good. Before trying it out, I worried that the small amount of flour would be a hindrance, and the fact that there is more sugar than flour, might prove disastrous, but in fact, the recipe worked quite well. Basically, it's an almond-flavored sponge cake. It has the texture and feel of sponge cake, and as it has a high protein content, it also quite nutritious. A few years ago I tried to make Olga Ragusa's adaption of this cake and was unable to do it. The cake dropped as soon as I took it out of the oven. This time, using Version II, of the Bocca di Dama recipe, the cake didn't drop, possibly because of the large numbers of egg whites used. In fact, it turned out to be a rather tall cake. A few years I couldn't find "bitter almonds" anywhere in Montreal, but this time I had no problems finding them. Middle Eastern grocery shops (like "Akhavan") have ample supplies of bitter almonds and other hard-to-find ingredients. As I didn't try Version I of "Bocca di Dama" I can't say how it will turn out, but I strongly recommend "Version II" for those who like almond-flavored sponge cakes. Photo and personal comments: Mary Melfi.

Back to main list