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Farina Cakes
(Pasticcini di semolino) Farina, six and a half ounces.
Sugar, three and a half ounces.
Pine-seeds, two ounces.
Butter, a small piece.
Milk, one quart.
Four eggs.
A pinch of salt.
Taste of lemon peel.
Cook the farina in the milk and when it begins to thicken pour the pine-seeds, previously chopped fine and pounded with the sugar, then the butter and the rest, less the eggs which must be put in last when the mixture has completely cooled. Then place the whole well mixed in little molds, greased evenly with butter and sprinkled with bread crumbs ground fine, and bake.
A semolina pudding stiffened with eggs and baked in small buttered molds — closer to a set custard cake than anything in a pastry case. The original gives no oven temperature and no yield, so both need filling in.
- "Farina" means semolinaThe Italian title, pasticcini di semolino, settles it: this is durum semolina, sold as semolina or semolina flour, not the American breakfast cereal branded Farina. Fine semolina gives the smoothest set; coarse works but stays slightly grainy.
- Weights to volumeSix and a half ounces of semolina is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons; three and a half ounces of sugar is a scant half cup; two ounces of pine nuts is roughly half a cup. The quart of milk is a full 4 cups — the mixture starts very loose and thickens a great deal.
- The hinge: cool it before the eggsThe instruction to add the eggs only "when the mixture has completely cooled" is the whole recipe. Hot semolina will scramble them into threads. Cool to at least lukewarm, then beat the eggs in one at a time.
- Cooking the semolinaRain the semolina into the simmering milk in a thin stream while whisking, or it will lump immediately. Fifteen to twenty minutes over low heat, stirring often, brings it to a thick porridge that holds the trace of the spoon.
- Pine nuts with the sugarPounding the nuts together with the sugar is not decorative — the sugar keeps the oily nuts from turning to paste under the pestle. A food processor does the same job in short pulses; stop while there is still some texture.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, 350F, for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tops are set and lightly colored. Small molds cook faster than one large dish.
- Molds and crumbsButter the molds thoroughly and dust with fine dry breadcrumbs, as directed — the crumbs give a thin crust and release. Dariole molds, timbale molds or a standard muffin tin all serve. Fill about three-quarters full.
- Lemon peel"Taste of lemon peel" means zest only, no white pith — the pared zest of one lemon steeped in the hot milk, or finely grated zest stirred in with the sugar.
- YieldExpect ten to twelve small cakes. They are best barely warm or at room temperature, when the set is firm; hot from the oven they are still slack.
Semolina pudding baked in molds is a fixture of Italian domestic cooking. Maria Gentile's The Italian Cook Book (1919) was one of a run of English-language volumes aimed at American readers curious about the food of a large and recent immigrant population, and its terse, weight-based instructions carry the flavor of direct translation from an Italian original. Pine nuts, pinoli, are associated with Tuscan and Ligurian sweets in particular — expensive then as now, and used in ounces rather than handfuls. The dish belongs to a broad European family of grain puddings enriched with eggs and sugar, a way of turning a cheap starch and a quart of milk into something fit to end a meal.