Now, this is more like it. The recipe comes from A Taste Of Tradition, Ruth Sirkis, 1972. In fact, I'd say this cake is everything a Passover cake could hope to be-light, sweet and quite plain. After all the heavy foods this week, it really hit the spot. Still, keep in mind that the cake is deceptively light and is still full of eggs and sugar. My sister once found that out the hard way as a child binging on Passover spongecake until she became quite ill. So moderation, OK?
Today was another of those days where I wanted to accomplish more than I was able to. Halfway through planting onions I realised that the world won't come crashing to a halt if I don't plant onions-so I planted one bag and then stopped. I'm headed to the hospital Friday and hopefully I'll get an answer soon for why I'm so terribly anemic. I keep thinking that being tired is something I can just will myself to overcome, but really I understand this isn't a matter of lacking stoicism. Man, I just want to plant my stupid onions and bake a cake now and then. Thankfully, this cake was a breeze with a hand mixer.
I really don't expect to be posting much over the next few days, and certainly not the weekend (Look, I know better than publishing anything post anesthesia-I have the post c-section missives at the other blog to back it up). In the meantime, do try this cake. Even if you don't celebrate Passover, it is a nice change from ordinary sponge cakes and could probably be adapted to use all potato starch for gluten free diets (haven't tried it, so try at your own risk).
This was so much better than that piece of( _____________insert favourite word for poop from Gourmet I baked and tossed yesterday.
You Will Need:
6 eggs at room temperature, separated
1/2 cup matzo meal
4 tablespoons potato starch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon salad oil
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly oil a 9 inch tube pan
Sift and measure the matzo meal and potato starch together. Set aside.
Place egg whites in a large bowl (I used a copper bowl)and the yolks in a medium bowl. Beat egg yolks with oil and lemon juice until very light in colour and thick.
Whip the egg white and salt until they form peaks and then VERY slowly-a tablespoon at a time, add the sugar. Beat until stiff but not dry. Fold the yolks into the whites carefully. Through a sieve, add the dry ingredients and carefully fold into the egg mixture. Fold in the grated zest.
Spoon into the pan without pressing. Bake about 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack. You do NOT need to hang or invert it.
Cool, and glaze if desired.
Wow! The next Passover I'll definitely bake this one! I don't have my grandma's recipe. Internet has a lot of recipes, but this is the first one I see with such beautiful pictures, and now I know I want to try this recipe, I'm pretty sure the final product won't get into garbage can. Thanks for the recipe and mouthwatering pictures!
ReplyDeleteSecond day enjoying browsing your blog and copying recipes. By the way, do you have the recipe for boimlebilkes?
I'm afraid I don't have a recipe for that (I'm not sure I even know what they are).
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're enjoying the blog.
It's reminds me of cinnamon buns. But those are different. Big knots made of yeast dough sprinkled on the inside and outside with cinnamon and sugar mixture and raisins. Has more than cinnamon buns egg, because inside look yellow almost as if you added saffron into the dough. Also the fat that goes into the dough is sunflower oil and the fat than you spread on the dough before sprinkling cinnamon with sugar and raisins also sunflower oil (sans the name boimlbuilkes means oily buns on Yiddish), but you can use any oil. I have my grandma's recipe, but it is not reliable. She dictated it to me when she was eighty something. I never tried to make them while she was alive. And now there is no one to ask. The final product I received was tough.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can work with yeast I didn't add flour more than was needed.
May be I should use less eggs. The eggs in Ukraine 40 years ago were much smaller in size than here.
interesting. I'll keep my eyes open for any recipes.
ReplyDeleteMy Ukrainian grandmother didn't really bake, she was more into making wine and herring.
Anyway, thanks for introducing me to something new.