Skip to content

Crisp Cake in Double Boiler

A historical recipe from The Italian Cook Book The Art of Eating Well, by Maria Gentile (1919).

No ratings yet

A historical recipe

The Italian Cook Book The Art of Eating Well; Practical Recipes of the Italian Cuisine, Pastries, Sweets, Frozen Delicacies, and Syrups, by Maria Gentile (1919). Project Gutenberg eBook #24407.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Italy

Known as an Italian recipe, with similar versions prepared across other nations.

Ingredients 1 ingredient

  1. a tin greased

Cook safely

Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.

  • Boiling water and steam. Turn pan handles inward, away from the edge of the hob. Lift lids away from you, and pour hot water away from your body: steam burns too.
  • Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.

Method

  1. Sugar, five and a half ounces.
  2. Sweet almonds, three ounces.
  3. Egg-yolks, five.
  4. Milk, one pint.
  5. Skin the almonds and chop them in little pieces about as big as a grain of wheat.
  6. Put on the fire two thirds of the sugar and when it is all melted pour the almonds and stir continually with the ladle until they have taken the color of cinnamon.
  7. Then put them in a tin greased with butter and when they are cold, pound them very fine with the remaining third of sugar.
  8. Add the yolks and then the milk, mix well and pour the mixture in a mold with a hole in the middle and greased evenly with butter.
  9. Place the mold in a double boiler so that it will be cooked by steam.

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Saucepan
  • Mortar and pestle
  • Chef's knife
  • Cutting board
  • Wooden spoon
  • Ladle
Source Public domain in the USA
Credit

From The Italian Cook Book The Art of Eating Well, by Maria Gentile (1919). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #24407 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24407). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.