Sponge cake
200 grams (about 7 ounces) powdered sugar
170 grams (about 6 ounces) very fine flour
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites, beaten stiff

For food coloring
white rosoliio (yellow)
Alkermes (red)
white rosolio marinated with chocolate (black)

For filling
Fruit preserves

Alternative filling
Rosolio and fruit preserves, quince, apricot or peach
Candied fruit

For white frosting
Icing sugar
egg whites

For chocolate frosting
2 ounces powdered sugar
30 grams powdered chocolate
beaten egg whites

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar for about half an hour [until creamy].

Fold in the egg whites, beaten stiff.

Sift the flour onto this mixture.

Bake.

Remove from oven, and while the cake is still hot cut into a sufficient number of strips two centimeters wide and as long as the remaining piece of sponge cake, for which they will be used as filling. But to give these strips a nice appearance, they should be different colors. So sprinkle some of them with white rosolio, and they'll turn yellow; others with alkermes, and they will turn red; dye the last ones black with white rosolio marinated with chocolate.

Arrange the dye strips of sponge cake in alternating colors one on top of the other in the middle of the remaining piece of cake, which you have spread with fruit preserves. Spread the fruit preserves on the strips of case as well, so that they'll stay in place.

Place the edges of the large piece of sponge cake over the strips of cake to form a compact roll. When the roll is sliced, you'll see the multicolored checkerboard filling.

While the cake is still warm, cut a few strips into two centimeters wide, and dye them in different colors.



You can make a simpler version of this cake... Spread the sponge cake with rosolio and fruit preserves -- it doesn't matter whether you you use quince, apricot, or peach. Arrange thin strips of candied fruit on top of this, and then roll the whole piece of cake up on itself.



Either way you make it, it's a good idea to decorate the top of the cake with either a lacework of sugar or with chocolate icing....

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.... N.B. This is a very difficult recipe to do, and I would not recommend doing it. "Salame Inglese" is a very popular sweet in Italy, but the sweet that currently goes by this name is slightly different from the one Pellegrino Artusi offers. Possibly his recipe is how "Salame Inglese" used to be done in the 19th century, but that style is no longer in fashion. Everything changes, in the kitchen most of all. Personal comments and photo: Mary Melfi.

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