Beat 3 yolks of eggs with 1 cup of milk, a salt-spoonful of salt, 1 tablespoonful of olive-oil and 1 tablespoonful of sugar. Mix with ½ cup of flour and the beaten whites of the eggs. Fry until light brown. Serve with cooked fruit.
A thin, egg-rich batter closer to a French crêpe or an Austrian pancake than to an American flapjack. The whipped whites are the whole point, so treat them accordingly.
- Fold the whites, do not stir themThe half cup of flour gives almost no structure; the beaten whites are what make these light. Fold them in with a spatula at the last moment and cook straight away, before the foam collapses.
- Salt-spoonfulA salt-spoon was a tiny table spoon holding roughly a quarter teaspoon. Use 1/4 teaspoon of fine salt.
- The batter is deliberately thinThe batter is thin -- One cup of milk to half a cup of flour is close to crepe strength, though the folded whites give some lift. Ladle roughly 3 tablespoons into the pan and swirl.
- "Fry" means a greased skilletNot deep fat. A heavy or nonstick pan over medium heat, wiped with butter or a little more olive oil between cakes. Two to three minutes on the first side, about one on the second.
- Olive oil in the batterA tablespoon of a mild, fruity oil is right; a peppery modern extra-virgin will dominate a sweet cake. If that is all you have, use half oil and half melted butter.
- Sugar and colourThe tablespoon of sugar helps the cakes take colour. Keep the heat moderate so the outside is not dark before the centre sets.
- Yield and servingMakes about eight cakes, enough for two or three people. "Cooked fruit" means stewed or poached fruit with its syrup — plums, apricots, cherries, or apples — spooned over or rolled inside.
This comes from a genre of cookbook that assigned one dish per day of the year and one nation to each dish. The national labels in such books are loose: what likely marks this batter as "Italian" to the compiler is the olive oil, at a time when American home baking meant butter or lard. The underlying method — a slack egg batter lightened with whipped whites, fried thin and served with stewed fruit — is common to much of Europe, turning up as crespelle in Italy, crêpes in France and Pfannkuchen or Palatschinken further east. Serving fruit that has been cooked rather than fresh reflects a kitchen year built around preserves and the stewing kettle, where a jar of last summer's plums was the natural accompaniment to a June supper dish.