The Engadin valley in the southeastern Swiss district of Graubünden is justly famed for this pie, which is also known as Bündner Nußtorte. It requires a little more patience than most of the other recipes but is well worth the effort. It goes without saying that the walnuts should be of the best quality you can find; even a slight rancid taste will spoil the effect. Traditionalists use nothing but honey in the filling, and frown on substitutes. However, I find that light corn syrup or liquid glucose makes it easier to get a smoother filling, as either retards re-crystallization.
The pie is very rich, so serve it in small wedges. It will keep for at least 1 week in a cool place, well wrapped.
300 g/10½ oz/2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
¼ tsp salt
150 g/5½ oz/generous 1¼ sticks butter, chilled and cubed
100 g/3½ oz/1 cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
1 egg, beaten
250 g/9 oz/1¼ cups granulated sugar
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp honey, light corn syrup or liquid glucose
150 ml/5 fl oz/⅔ cup double (heavy) cream, warmed
250 g/9 oz/2¼ cups walnuts, coarsely chopped
24-cm/9-in springform tin
Make the pastry first. In a large bowl, mix the flour and salt. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the icing sugar and rub in until well incorporated. Or simply put all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until it resembles fine breadcrumbs, then transfer to a bowl.
Reserving 2 tsp egg, add the rest to the bowl and use your fingertips to bring it together. Add a few drops of water if necessary. Cover with clingfilm (plastic wrap) and chill while you make the filling.
Have a pair of oven mitts standing by. Put the sugar, water and honey in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Stir gently to dissolve the sugar. Bring to the boil and let it continue to boil until it becomes a dark golden colour. Stir from time to time.
Put on the oven mitts and pour the warm cream into the saucepan in a steady stream, stirring continuously. It will hiss and bubble ferociously, but the mitts should protect your hands and arms. Keep on stirring the mixture on medium heat until it is creamy and slightly thickened. To test, pour 1 tsp onto a cold saucer and tilt it after a few seconds. The mixture should spread slowly and not disintegrate into rivulets. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the walnuts, coating them well. Set aside to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4. Grease the tin.
To assemble the pie, the pastry should be chilled but still malleable, or it will break when you roll it. Divide the pastry into two portions, one slightly larger than the other. Roll out the larger portion between two sheets of clingfilm (plastic wrap) to a 30-cm/12-in circle and use it to line the tin. (Use the bottom sheet of clingfilm to help move it, removing the sheet once the pastry is in place.) Press the edges of the pastry against the side of the tin.
Scrape the filling onto the pastry. Level the top as well as you can, but don’t apply too much pressure, or you may tear the pastry and the filling will leak out. Fold the excess pastry inwards over the filling.
Roll the second piece of pastry to a neat 22-cm/8½-in circle. Trim if necessary. Moisten the edges of the pastry base in the tin with a little water and position the second pastry circle on top of this. Use a fork to crimp and seal the edges. Brush with the reserved egg and prick with a fork in several places. If you like, you can score a plaid pattern onto the surface with the fork.
Bake for 35–40 minutes, or until golden brown. Leave to cool until lukewarm in the tin, then loosen the sides, release the clip and carefully transfer the pie to a wire rack to cool completely.
Pictured on p. 169 and overleaf.
This meringue is just the thing to make when you have a few egg whites left over from another recipe. It is a great standby to have in the freezer because it can be used to assemble a number of desserts in next to no time. Among other things, you can sandwich it with whipped cream or chocolate and serve it with seasonal berries; use it to garnish a bowl of ice cream; or simply break it into pieces and eat it on its own, using it straight from the freezer. I like to bake it at a higher temperature than is recommended for proper meringues: as it colours, it caramelizes a little, bringing out even more flavour.
100 g/3½ oz/1 cup ground almonds
50 g/1¾ oz/½ cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
2 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
⅛ tsp salt
100 g/3½ oz egg white (about 3)
100 g/3½ oz/½ cup caster (superfine) sugar
400 ml/14 fl oz/1¾ cups whipping cream
sugar to taste
or
300 g/10½ oz/10½ squares dark chocolate, chopped
150 ml/5 fl oz/⅔ cup whipping cream
mixed berries, for serving
baking sheet 35 x 25 cm/14 x 10 in, lined with baking parchment*
Mix the ground almonds with the icing sugar, cornflour and salt, and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 160˚C/325˚F/Gas Mark 3. Line the baking sheet with baking parchment.
Put the egg whites in a scrupulously clean bowl and whisk until foaming. Add the caster sugar in a slow and steady stream while whisking, and continue to whisk until stiff peaks hold their shape. Using a balloon whisk, gently but thoroughly fold in the almond mixture. Stop as soon as all the white streaks have disappeared.
Transfer to the sheet and level the top as best you can, holding onto one edge of the paper to keep it in place. Bake for 30–35 minutes. Don’t over-bake; the slight caramelization gives it extra flavour, but if you leave this for too long a bitter aftertaste may develop.
Remove from the oven and invert onto a wire rack. Carefully remove the baking paper and leave to cool.
This will keep for several days, well wrapped, in a dry place or airtight container and also freezes well. It tends to soften a little as time goes by, but shouldn’t become sticky. When you are ready to assemble the cake, cut the meringue sheet into three equal rectangles.
If you are making a chocolate filling, you can assemble the cake a few hours in advance. Put the chocolate and cream in a heavy-based saucepan and stir gently to melt the chocolate and incorporate the cream. Let it stand for a few minutes to cool and thicken a little, then use it to sandwich the three pieces of meringue together. Set aside for 1–2 hours to allow the filling to set.
If you would like to sandwich the meringue with whipped cream, do this just before serving, or the meringue will get soggy. Sweeten the cream to taste and whip it until soft peaks hold their shape. Then use it to sandwich the three pieces of meringue.
Serve with fresh berries.
* Cut the baking parchment generously at two opposing ends so that you have something to grab onto when spreading the meringue. If not, the sheet will slide back and forth, and the spreading will take for ever.
Karidopita, sometimes referred to as Athenian Walnut Cake, is one of those typical Greek cakes born of a happy marriage between Eastern and Western ingredients and techniques. It has many remarkable features and defies categorization: it is a spice cake, nut cake and syrup cake rolled into one. Bread or rusk crumbs are used instead of flour, shortening the baking time a little. It is at its lightest on the day of baking, but the flavour mellows and the nuttiness becomes more evident after a day or so.
125 g/4½ oz/ 1 cup fine dried breadcrumbs or rusk crumbs
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground clove
100 g/3½ oz/1 cup walnuts, finely ground
4 eggs
150 g/5½ oz/¾ cup caster (superfine) sugar
100 g/3½ oz/⅞ stick butter, melted and cooled slightly
150 ml/5 fl oz/⅔ cup prepared sugar syrup (see recipe on p. 273)
24-cm/9-in round springform tin
Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4. Grease the tin, then line the base with baking parchment and dust with flour.
Mix the breadcrumbs with the baking powder, cinnamon, clove and walnuts, and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and caster sugar until thick and pale. When the whisk is lifted, the mixture should fall in a ribbon rather than a stream. Gently fold in the dry mixture using a balloon whisk. Add the butter and make sure it is well incorporated.
Transfer the batter to the prepared tin and bake for 30–35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. The cake will shrink a little towards the end of the baking time.
Put the cake tin on a wire rack and loosen the sides from the tin with a spatula. Pour the syrup evenly over the top of the hot cake, starting from the outside and working your way towards the middle with a circular movement. Leave to cool.
When cool, release the clip and carefully turn the cake onto a flat surface. Remove the bottom of the tin and the paper and re-invert the cake onto a plate, then serve. Alternatively, store in an airtight container.
Gerbeaud House occupies palatial premises on Vörösmarty tér, one of the finest squares in Pest, where you can expect to be entertained by impromptu musical performances. On an average day, you might hear the deep and ominous rumble of a huge drum accompanied by what appear to be native bagpipes competing with violinists and breakdancers for the attention of passers-by and patrons. This dignified white building is a place of pilgrimage for lovers of cake and pastries, locals and tourists alike. It can seat several hundred guests, either in comfortably cushioned cane chairs on the terrace or in beautifully upholstered chairs in one of the stylish, classically decorated salons. (Sadly, this elegance and luxury is reflected in the bill.)
Emil Gerbeaud, on whose name the enterprise rests, came from a family of Swiss confectioners. After perfecting his art in several European capitals, including Paris, he went to Budapest at the invitation of Henrik Kugler. Himself the son and grandson of confectioners, Kugler had expanded his father’s business, moving to the present location in 1870. Gerbeaud became the owner in 1884, when Kugler retired, and he proceeded to lift the already renowned patisserie to even more dizzying heights. He is credited with introducing Hungarians to the finer French-influenced flavours, which they could enjoy in sumptuous surroundings. Wars, occupation and nationalization took their toll, and for a brief period during World War I the building even housed horses instead of discerning pastry eaters. The communist era saw the proud name removed from the façade and the shop renamed after the square on which it stood. The Gerbeaud family are long gone, but the name has now been restored and its reputation remains undiminished.
Their signature cake, the Gerbeaud Slice, has become public property and is imitated by rival patissiers and home bakers alike, some of whom like to add a personal touch. Competitor Ruszwurm, housed in a microscopic but equally famous shop situated near Buda Castle on the other side of the Danube, makes a Gerbeaud Slice that appears to include apples. Having tasted it, I can’t say that the apple does great things for the flavour or texture, but many locals prefer it to the original.
The following version, more in the style of the original, is simple to make at home. Even though the unusual pastry is yeast-based, the actual preparation time is quite short. The good thing about these slices – apart from the fact that they are irresistible – is that you can vary the sweetness to suit your taste, by using a different blend of dark chocolate or a jam or preserve that is either sweeter or tarter.
1 tsp sugar
25 g/1 oz/scant ¼ cup plain (all-purpose) flour
1¼ tsp easy-blend (active dry) yeast
50 ml/1¾ fl oz/scant ¼ cup warm milk
225 g/8 oz/1½ cups plain (all-purpose) flour
¼ tsp baking powder
125 g/4½ oz/1 stick butter, chilled and cubed
50 g/1¾ oz/½ cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
¼ tsp salt
2 egg yolks
100 g/3½ oz/1 cup walnuts, finely ground
100 g/3½ oz/½ cup caster (superfine) sugar
125 g/4½ oz/generous ⅓ cup tart apricot preserve or jam (jelly)
125 g/4½ oz/4½ squares dark chocolate, chopped
50 ml/1¾ fl oz/scant ¼ cup milk
20-cm/8-in square tin
For the starter, mix together all the ingredients in a small jug. Cover with clingfilm (plastic wrap) and set aside in a warm place for 10 minutes, or until bubbles appear on the surface.
For the pastry, mix the flour with the baking powder. Rub the cold butter into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and salt and combine well. You can also simply put it all into a food processor and pulse until it reaches the desired consistency, then transfer to a bowl for the next step.
For the filling, combine the walnuts with the caster sugar and set aside.
Add the starter and the egg yolks to the other pastry ingredients and knead well to make a soft, pliable dough. Cover and let it rest for about 10 minutes, then divide into 3 portions.
On a lightly floured surface (a silicone mat is ideal), roll out a piece of pastry so that it is about 1 cm/½ in larger than the bottom of the tin on all sides. Grease the tin, then use the rolling pin to transfer the pastry carefully to the tin and to line it so that the excess pastry comes up the sides. This will prevent jam and sugar from seeping out and leaving ugly streaks.
Spread half of the jam on the pastry and sprinkle half of the walnut and sugar mixture over it.
Roll out a second piece of pastry and trim it if necessary so that it fits neatly over the filling. Spread the remaining filling over this layer, then top with the third piece of pastry and press gently to make the top and edges even. Cover with clingfilm and leave at room temperature for about 1 hour. Don’t expect to see it rise because it won’t.
Preheat the oven to 170°C/340°F/above Gas Mark 3.
Use a fork or sharply pointed knife to prick several rows of holes on the surface of the pastry and bake for 25–30 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove the tin from the oven and allow it to stand for about 5 minutes, then invert the pastry onto a rack to cool.
When the pastry has cooled completely, make the glaze. Put the chocolate and milk in a heavy-based saucepan and heat it very gently, stirring to melt the chocolate and to combine it with the milk.
Pour the glaze over the top of the pastry (the smooth inverted bottom) and use swift strokes to spread it neatly.
When the glaze has set, trim two opposing sides of the pastry and make a cut down the middle at right angles to the trimmed sides. This gives neater slices. Slice each half into 6 or 8 pieces. This will keep at cool room temperature for a few days, but the pastry will soften a little as time goes by.
Basbousa, known as namura in some countries, is a typical Middle Eastern cake that usually consists of semolina alone or semolina mixed with nuts like almonds, coconut or pistachio. Yoghurt is sometimes added to the batter, and the cake is more often than not steeped in a sugar syrup when it is removed from the oven. Sometimes melted butter is also poured over the baked basbousa, but I find that this only makes the cake unnecessarily rich without enhancing the flavour. It does, however, remain a cake that is best served in small portions. I like to serve it for dessert after a spicy meal. I find it addictive and take a small portion – every time I pass the dish.
100 g/3½ oz/⅔ cup blanched almonds, finely ground
150 g/5½ oz/generous ¾ cup semolina
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
150 g/5½ oz/¾ cup Greek-style (strained plain) yoghurt
100 g/3½ oz/½ cup caster (superfine) sugar
125 g/4½ oz/generous 1 stick butter, melted and cooled slightly
200 ml/7 fl oz/¾ cup prepared cold syrup (p. 273)
24-cm/9-in round springform tin
Mix the almonds, semolina, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4. Grease the tin, then line the base with baking parchment and dust with flour.
Beat the yoghurt and sugar together until the sugar has become well incorporated. Add the butter and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and beat well to mix.
Transfer to the tin and bake for 30–35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake is golden brown in colour.
Remove the cake from the oven and use a sharp spatula or knife to make 6 parallel cuts. Do this carefully, with just one downwards movement; the cake is very fragile. Turn the tin slightly and cut a further 6 times so that you have diamond-shaped pieces. Pour the cold syrup over the hot cake. To bring out the flavour, leave to stand for a few hours before serving.
Spaniards are fond of a sweet breakfast, when they bother with the meal at all. As a student in Salamanca, it took me a while to get used to the fact that breakfast consisted of a few Marie biscuits or a small Magdalena cake accompanied by a cup of milky coffee or hot chocolate – and if you were really unlucky, a hot and cloyingly sweet ‘chocolate’ drink called ColaCao. Lunch was a far way off, at 2.30 p.m., and at midmorning break there was a group sprint to the café across the road from the lecture rooms. There we would attempt to quieten the protests of rumbling stomachs with more café con leche and a pastry or a bocadillo, a crusty roll with potato omelette, Manchego cheese or Serrano ham.
This cake is very popular in northern Spain, and, in true Spanish style, you can expect to have it served at breakfast. However, it also makes an excellent dessert. It is named after St James (Santiago in Spanish), whose remains were interred at Santiago de Compostela in the ninth century. James, one of the apostles closest to Jesus, was the first to be martyred when Herod Agrippa had him executed by sword. In the Middle Ages, Santiago de Compostela ranked as one of the three most important places of pilgrimage, coming only after Jerusalem and Rome, and it still draws large numbers of pilgrims every year. The cake is sometimes decorated with a stencil of a sword or a large scallop shell, symbols that are both associated with St James. The scallop shell appears on his hat in depictions from the fourteenth century onwards, and the two are linked in more than one language. Both Dutch and French, for instance, refer to a scallop as a ‘St James’ shell – Sint Jakobsschelp and coquille St Jacques respectively.
My recipe uses butter, but you will often find it made with olive oil in Spain. Butter has a superior flavour and better creaming properties, but if you would like to try it with oil, use the equivalent weight and heat the oil very slowly with a piece of lemon rind, allowing it to cool completely before use. This Spanish technique tames the strong and distinctive taste of the oil, making it more flavourful and suitable for use in a cake. The eggs and sugar should then be whisked together and the oil added last, after the flour.
200 g/7 oz/1¾ sticks butter, softened
350 g/12 oz/1¾ cups caster (superfine) sugar
5 eggs, lightly beaten
grated zest of 1 lemon
350 g/12 oz/2⅓ cups blanched almonds, finely ground
100 g/3½ oz/⅔ cup plain (all-purpose) flour
¼ tsp salt
icing (confectioner’s) sugar, for dusting
24-cm/9-in round springform tin
Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4. Grease the tin and line with baking parchment.
Beat the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and continue to beat until lightened in colour and fluffy. Add the egg in three batches, scraping down the sides of the bowl well after each addition. Add the lemon zest with the last batch of egg.
Mix the almonds, flour and salt together and gently fold into the creamed mixture.
Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking tin, then level the top and bake for 50–60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. The cake should be moist but not under-baked. Leave to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes, then loosen the edges with a spatula and release the clip. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
When the cake has cooled, dust lightly with icing sugar.
In our house, this cake is called Yom Tov Tik, Dutch-Yiddish for ‘holiday food’. It started when my son was a toddler and has now become part of the family vocabulary. I served it one evening during Passover while my father-in-law was visiting, and as he slowly savoured a mouthful, he murmured appreciatively that it was ‘real Yom Tov Tik’. Leon heard that and firmly held on to it as the name of the cake, which has remained one of his favourites.
Now for just a bit of background to explain things: although the Jewish population of the Netherlands has now been decimated, it was sizable before World War II. My own experiences of Jewish life here are obviously fairly recent, though they span almost three decades, but I have always listened with interest to the stories related by the friends and relatives who visited my in-laws. Tante Surry was a regular and welcome visitor. She and my mother-in-law were closely bound together by ties forged at places that are just names in history books to most of us: Dachau, Bergen Belsen, Sobibor and Auschwitz.
She was a cheerful, friendly woman who could talk on a wide variety of topics at great length. In addition to her ironic little jokes – like telling inquisitive strangers that the concentration camp number tattooed on her forearm was her phone number, as she was quite forgetful – she would offer spontaneous titbits of information at the appropriate moment. She was about 20 when the war broke out, one of a large brood of children of a Hague greengrocer and his wife. She and her youngest sister were the only survivors. Sentence by sentence, she built up wonderfully vivid word pictures about pre-war life.
While not exactly poor, they had to do the necessary scrimping and saving to make ends meet. Added to that was the burden of having to pay more for Kosher food than for regular groceries. In general, only the very religious ate strictly Kosher throughout the year, buying solely those foods that had been approved by the rabbinate. But at Passover, all Jewish households ate not only Kosher but ‘Kosher for Passover’, which is even more restrictive. Wheat flour, and any products that ferment, are banned during this period, which commemorates the flight of the Israelites from Egypt. Pursued by Pharaoh’s men, Moses and his followers were compelled to keep moving, so there was no time to let their bread rise and they baked it in its unleavened state. Ever since then, Jews throughout the world have marked the occasion by replacing bread with matzohs and matzoh-based products for the eight days of Passover.
In Tante Surry’s house, Passover was the great event of the year and money would be set aside regularly beforehand in order to be able to buy the special foods required. It was a very taxing time for the household budget. The thin matzohs need more topping than bread, and butter has a sneaky way of creeping into all the little undulations on the crackers’ generous expanse. Treats like cake and cookies, normally made with flour, would now have to be made with matzohs, matzoh meal and nuts. In addition to that – and I speak from personal experience – matzohs are not very filling and one eats matzoh after matzoh before reaching the pleasant state of satisfaction that bread induces more quickly.
First, the house was cleansed of any lingering traces of chametz, polluting non-Passover food, and the Passover crockery was brought down from the attic. Then the buying started. In their household, that included several institutional-sized boxes of matzohs, pounds and pounds of butter, hefty chunks of salty, mature Gouda cheese and mounds of thinly sliced pekelvlees (corned beef), to be eaten with generous helpings of krijn, grated horseradish mixed with vinegar and sugar. Not all of the matzohs would be eaten in their original form. Instead of the usual vermicelli, Shabbes soup would now sport matzoh dumplings, delicious with more brain-searing krijn. Gremselich, pancakes made from matzoh crumbs, apple, raisins, nuts and egg, soaked up copious quantities of butter from the frying pan and would be devoured with alacrity as soon as they left it. Shortbread and sand cake made way for marzipan and lusciously rich nut cakes, compact without leavening, but absolutely mouth-watering – all simply delicious ‘Yom Tov Tik’. How my father-in-law must have missed such food during the three lonely, holiday-less years he spent in an abandoned hayloft in the middle of an isolated field in eastern Holland, fearing that each approaching step might be made by an enemy boot.
This is the type of cake that is usually eaten during the Jewish holiday season of Passover, or Pesach. For the eight days of Passover, the staple at this time is the matzoh, an unleavened bread that looks and tastes like a water cracker. The wheat for the matzohs is grown under strict supervision and is given no chance to ferment at any stage. Observant Jews remove all opened products from the pantry prior to Passover and replace them with fresh ones that are not simply Kosher, but are Kosher for Passover. On the day before Passover, there is a ceremony that greatly appeals to children: a candle is lit and used to track down any crumbs remaining in the house. Some people even have separate crockery especially for Passover in order to avoid accidental contact with fermented products.
This cake contains no meal of any kind and relies on finely ground nuts for body. And if the final product is a little less slick than most other cakes, be happy nevertheless: at Passover, it is a treat to have a cake that is (a) relatively light in texture, and (b) free of matzoh in any form! It is delicious as it is, but I also like to serve it for dessert any time of the year. Try it with raspberries macerated in crème de cassis, and a dollop of sweetened whipped cream on the side, or glaze it with chocolate.
If potato starch is hard to find and if you are not making it for Passover, you could use cornflour (cornstarch) instead. The potato starch does give it a more melt-in-the-mouth quality, though.
4 eggs
200 g/7 oz/1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
200 g/7 oz/1⅓ cups blanched hazelnuts or almonds, finely ground
¼ tsp salt
4 packed tbsp potato starch
115 g/4 oz/1 stick butter, melted
1 tbsp brandy or Kosher spirit of your choice
125 ml/4 fl oz/½ cup cream, single (light) or double (heavy)
125 g/4½ oz/4½ squares dark chocolate, chopped
20-cm/8-in square tin
Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4. Line the tin with baking parchment cut to come up about 2.5 cm/1 in above the top of the tin,
Use an electric mixer (or failing that, a strong wrist and a hand whisk) to whisk the eggs and sugar until the mixture falls off the whisk in a thick ribbon rather than a thin stream.
Mix the nuts, salt and potato starch together, then fold gently into the egg mixture with a balloon whisk. Add the melted butter and brandy and fold in with the whisk until there are no more streaks of butter evident in the batter. Don’t overwork the mixture.
Transfer the batter to the prepared tin and smooth the surface with a scraper or spatula. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until light golden brown. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. The top will billow out a bit towards the end, but will subside as it cools.
Remove the tin from the oven and leave to cool for about 5 minutes, then grip the paper lining on two opposing sides and lift the cake from the pan. Put it on a wire rack, ease down the paper sides and leave to cool completely.
When completely cool, re-invert the cake onto a serving plate and carefully remove the paper. If you plan to glaze the cake, do not re-invert it; the bottom is smoother and will give a better finish.
To glaze the cake, put the cream and chocolate in a small saucepan over a very low heat and stir until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is homogenous. Let it cool slightly, then pour over the top of the cooled cake and spread swiftly with a palette knife. Leave to set.
Slice into pieces, dipping a knife into hot water and drying quickly before each cut to avoid damaging the glaze.
