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Biscuits, Portugal
Place in a copper basin four ounces sugar, four egg yolks, a tablespoon rum, and beat up with whisk for ten minutes. Scald two ounces almonds in boiling water for two minutes, drain, peel, pound in mortar with white of an egg to a smooth pulp, rub through sieve into a bowl, add the juice of two sound oranges, the grated rind of one, and mix thoroughly. Beat up whites of the four eggs to a stiff froth and add to preparation, mix well with the skimmer, then pour in almonds and oranges and again mix well. Line the bottom of a small, square, buttered tin with sheet of buttered paper, then drop in the preparation, sprinkle a little powdered sugar over, set in oven for twenty-five minutes, remove to a table, let rest for ten minutes, turn cake on the table, lift up paper, cut cake in twelve equal parts, dredge a little powdered sugar over, dress on dish with folded napkin and serve.
This is a flourless almond-and-orange sponge baked in a square tin and cut into twelve squares — the "biscuits" of the title are the portions, not crisp cookies. The whole thing stands or falls on how gently the beaten whites are folded in.
- Folding is the hingeThere is no flour and no chemical leavening here; the only lift comes from the four whipped whites. Add them in two or three additions and fold with a broad spatula (a modern stand-in for Filippini's "skimmer") just until no streaks remain — overmixing gives a flat, damp slab.
- Oven temperatureFilippini gives none. A batter of this type wants a moderate oven, 350F, for the stated 25 minutes; check at 20 with a skewer, as the orange juice makes it slow to set in the centre.
- Copper basinUnlined copper was standard for whisking eggs and sugar because it helps stabilise the foam. Any wide stainless or glass bowl works; avoid aluminium, which can grey the whites.
- The almond pasteTwo ounces of almonds pounded in a mortar with one egg white is a marzipan-like pulp. A food processor does it in seconds, but pulse rather than run it — heat turns almonds oily. The sieving step will catch any skin fragments or grit from the mortar and can be skipped if the paste is already smooth.
- Egg accountingYou use five whites' worth of egg in total if read literally: one white in the almond paste plus "the whites of the four eggs." Buy five eggs, use four yolks.
- "Sound" orangesSimply unblemished, not bruised or fermenting — a real concern before refrigerated shipping. The juice of two oranges is roughly 1/2 to 2/3 cup, which is a lot of liquid for this quantity of egg; strain out pulp and expect a moist, almost pudding-like crumb rather than a dry cake.
- The tin"Small, square" is not defined; something in the region of 7 or 8 inches suits this quantity. Butter it, line the base with buttered parchment in place of the buttered paper, and leave the sides unlined so the batter can climb.
- Powdered sugarConfectioners' or icing sugar. The pre-bake sprinkle forms a thin crackled crust; the second dusting goes on after cutting.
- Yield and serviceTwelve squares, best the day they are made. The folded napkin on the serving dish is standard period presentation for biscuits and small pastries.
In Filippini's International Cook Book, dishes run alphabetically by name with the nationality appended to the title, as in "Biscuits, Portugal", and this one lands squarely in a Portuguese sweet tradition built on egg yolks, ground almonds and sugar rather than butter and flour. Portugal's convent kitchens are generally credited with that style — houses such as those at Aveiro and Guimarães produced a whole family of yolk-heavy sweets, and the surplus of yolks is traditionally explained by the whites being used elsewhere, for clarifying wine or stiffening habits, though the story is repeated more often than it is documented. "Biscuit" here follows the French pastry sense, a whisked egg foam baked as a light sponge, which is why the recipe reads as a cake and is then cut into twelve neat pieces. The orange is the local signature: Portuguese oranges were prized across Europe from the seventeenth century onward, and in several languages the fruit is still named after the country that supplied it.