Ingredients
For cake batter
Sugar, 4 oz.
Flour of Hungary, 4 oz.
Sweet almonds, 3 oz.
Eggs, 4
For Cream Filling
Sugar, 2 oz.
Flour, 1/2 oz.
Butter, 1/2 oz.
Flavor of vanilla
Eggs, 2
Milk, less than 1 pint
For Frosting
sugar, 8 ounces
water, 1/5 pint
lemon, 1/4 of the juice
sweet almonds
Directions
Remove the skin from the almonds and dry them in the sun or near the fire. Pick the largest of these, up to 1/2 of the lot, and cut them into two lobes or halves; cut the rest into thin slices.
Beat the eggs and sugar in a pan over a very low fire for 15 minutes.
Remove them from the fire and add the flour, mixing slowly.
Use a smooth round baking dish, about 4 inches deep. Smear the baking dish with butter and spray it with a spoonful of powdered sugar and flour mixed together; pour in the compound.
Bake in oven at moderate heat.
Remove and cool.
Cut into slices 1/4 inch thick.
Now make a cream.
Allow the butter and flour to cook over a low fire, but remove it before it browns.
Wait till it becomes tepid, then add the egg yolks, milk and sugar.
Replace on the fire, and when hot, spread it on one side of each slice of the cake and arrange the slices in layers (one on top of the other).
Now prepare a sort of frosting.
Put 8 ounces of sugar and more than 1/5 pint of water in a pan.
Stir to melt the sugar and heat till the liquid thickens so as to stick to your finger.
Remove it as soon as it forms bubbles.
As soon as it begins to cool, squeeze the juice of 1/4 of a lemon into it and work it with a large spoon until becomes as white as snow.
In case it is too thick, add sufficient water to thin it out so that it flows like thick heavy cream.
Throw the almonds cut into thin slices into this frosting.
Mix well and "plaster" the cake all around.
On top of the cake make rows with the other almonds pieces, stuck straight up.
Notes
This recipe (#339) was taken from "The Italian Cook Book" adapted from the Italian of Pellegrino Artusi by Olga Ragusa. It was published by S.F. Vanni in New York in 1945. For the complete copyright cook book see www.archive.org. Photo of store-bought Italian multi-layered cake: Mary Melfi. |
