Home › Pantry Parking › Potato Torte
Potato Torte
1 3/4 cups sugar 8 egg yolks, beaten until light 1 cup almonds, ground (unblanched) 1 lemon (juice and rind) 3/4 cup flour (potato and white mixed) 1 teaspoon baking powder 8 egg whites, beaten stiff Add sugar to beaten egg yolks and beat well. Add almonds, lemon rind and juice. Mix in flour and baking powder sifted together and fold in whites of eggs. Bake in slow oven (300 degrees F.) for 55 minutes in a loaf.
A nut-and-egg torte leavened almost entirely by beaten whites, with a small amount of mixed flour for structure. The oven temperature is already given in degrees, which is unusual for books of this vintage and makes the recipe easy to follow.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe whites provide most of the lift here (the teaspoon of baking powder is only a supplement), and 8 whites is a large volume of foam to lose. Fold in three additions with a spatula, cutting down and turning over, and stop while a few streaks remain rather than beating to a uniform batter.
- Potato flourWhat the book calls potato flour is sold today as potato starch. It is not the same as the coarser potato flour milled from whole dried potato. The recipe does not give proportions for the mix; an even split of potato starch and all-purpose, totalling 3/4 cup, is a reasonable reading, and the starch keeps the crumb tender and slightly moist.
- Unblanched almondsThe skins are wanted, for colour and a faint bitterness. Grind whole raw almonds in short pulses with a spoonful of the measured sugar to keep them from turning to paste.
- Oven300F is deliberately low, and 55 minutes at that heat is right for a deep loaf. Do not raise the temperature to hurry it: the top will set and crack before the centre cooks through.
- Pan"In a loaf" means a loaf pan; the recipe gives no size. A standard modern pan of about 9 by 5 inches, greased and lined on the bottom, will do. This makes a generous quantity of batter, so fill no more than two-thirds and bake any excess separately.
- LemonOne lemon gives roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons juice and about 1 tablespoon zest. Grate the rind before juicing, and avoid the white pith.
- Doneness and coolingThe centre should spring back and a skewer come out clean; internally the crumb is set around 205-210F. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out, or the fragile structure will tear.
- YieldOne loaf, 10 to 12 slices. The recipe gives no serving suggestion; a plain nut torte of this kind takes well to fruit, whipped cream or a spoonful of preserves.
Tortes built on ground nuts, many eggs and little or no wheat flour belong to the Central European baking tradition that came to American kitchens with Austrian, Hungarian and German-Jewish households, and they turn up repeatedly in community and club cookbooks of the early twentieth century. Potato starch is the telling ingredient: it is the standard substitute in Passover baking, where wheat flour is avoided, and a recipe of this shape could readily be made either way, with an all-potato-starch version for Passover and a mixed-flour version like this one at other times.