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PORTUGUESE CAKES (another way)
Take half a pound of flour and the yolks of six eggs. Put these into a basin, and work with a spoon till frothy. Pound four ounces of almonds with the white of an egg, pass them through a sieve, add a pinch of orange-sugar, and dilute with the juice of four oranges. As soon as the cake-preparation is frothy, add to it carefully four ounces of potato-flour. Nest add the almonds and orange-juice, together with the six whipped whites of eggs. Pour the mixture on a baking-sheet with an up-standing border, the baking-sheet being buttered and covered with paper. Spread the mixture in a layer one inch thick. Bake in a moderate oven. When the cake has cooled, face it on the top and mask on this side, first with a thin layer of apricot marmalade, and afterwards with a layer of orange-icing sugar. Divide the cake immediately into squares, and let the glaze dry. The orange-icing sugar is made by soaking the rind of two oranges in a gill of syrup, adding the juice of the fruit, sugar to make a stiff paste, and yellow colouring. This icing should be worked over the fire till warm.
A yolk-rich almond and orange sponge baked as a slab, glazed and cut into squares. The method is written in professional shorthand, and one of the omissions is worth noticing before you start.
- There is almost no sugar in the batterApart from a pinch of orange-sugar, the sweetness comes entirely from the apricot glaze and the icing. If you follow the text exactly you get a lean, eggy almond sponge that depends on its topping. Cakes of this kind are more usually made by beating the yolks with sugar, so it is worth deciding before you mix whether to add some.
- Orange-sugarLump or granulated sugar rubbed hard against the skin of an orange until it is saturated with the oil, then scraped off. A teaspoon of finely grated zest worked into caster sugar does the same job.
- Potato-flourPotato starch, sold as such or as fecule. It is not potato flour in the modern wholefood sense, which is a dried cooked potato powder and will make the cake heavy. Cornflour is the nearest substitute.
- Pounding the almondsFour ounces of blanched almonds worked to a paste in a mortar with an egg white and then sieved. A food processor gets you there, but stop before the oil breaks out; ground almonds moistened with the white are a fair shortcut.
- A gillFive fluid ounces in British measure, so half a cup plus two tablespoons. The syrup for the icing is a plain sugar syrup.
- Moderate oven350F / 175C. A one-inch layer on a rimmed sheet is done in roughly 20-25 minutes, when it springs back and the edges shrink slightly from the paper.
- Face and maskTrade terms. To face is to trim the crusted top level so the glaze sits flat; to mask is to coat the surface completely. The apricot marmalade is sieved apricot jam boiled briefly and brushed on hot, which seals the crumb so the icing does not sink in.
- Working the icing over the fireWarm it to no more than blood heat, stirring, until it pours in a thick ribbon. Overheated fondant-type icing goes dull and grainy. Cut the squares while it is still soft, then leave them to set.
- YieldA quarter-sheet pan of about 13 x 9 inches is about the right size for spreading the batter to the one-inch depth called for; it will cut into roughly 16 to 20 squares.
Cassell's carried several recipes under the Portuguese name, all of them variations on the same idea: many egg yolks, ground almonds, orange, and a starch rather than a heavy hand of wheat flour. That profile is the signature of the Iberian convent sweet, where sheets of egg yolks left over from other work were the foundation of a whole class of cakes and puddings, and it is the same family that produces pao de lo and the yolk-and-sugar confections still sold in Portuguese pastelarias. The orange is not incidental either: sweet oranges reached northern Europe largely through Portuguese trade, and English cooks called them Portugal oranges well into the eighteenth century, so the fruit and the country were linked in the kitchen vocabulary long before this book was compiled. What Cassell's adds is the late-Victorian professional finish - the slab bake, the apricot seal, the coloured icing, the neat squares - which turns a convent cake into something a confectioner could sell by the dozen.