I made a couple of cakes for Rhinebeck.  I think I mentioned.  I love them both, but one is particularly important to me in the larger scheme of things, because it comes down to me from a ways off.  Coincidentally, it’s also the cake that got the most compliments and recipe requests.  I can’t tell you how happy that made me.  A restaurant near our house used to serve a cake almost identical to this one.  The owners’ Mom made it.  She was from Naples.  She stopped making the cake because she was getting on in years and her sons wanted her to take it easy, so we basically don’t go to the restaurant anymore.  Good Bolognese I can make with a little effort.  Lasagna–I don’t want it if someone else makes it.  Chicken Parm–ffffffft, who can’t do that?  This cake?  It takes work.  And it tastes best when a Grandma makes it.  It just does. 

My maternal grandmother, Potensia Florence Marcone, was the child of Italian immigrants.  Her mother, Antoinette, was by all accounts an amazing cook and was a restaurateur for a time in Pittsburgh, where she and her husband settled.  Her mother, Sarafina, made this cake, as did Antoinette, according to my Grandmother.  I was apparently supposed to be named after Sarafina, as she had been named after her great-great, but no one told my Mom in time.  Some family traditions are easily lost.  This cake hasn’t been, though we came close.  It’s apparently very common in Naples, but I’ve looked over other recipes for this cake, and I’m sure that they are all crap compared to ours.   If you ever tell me otherwise, I will be forced to smack you, or at least take my cake out of your hands. 

My grandmother hated to make this cake, and just talked wistfully about it to me when I was a kid, hoping somehow to conjure one up out of thin air.  She was a good cook, but she didn’t like to cook.  She was a kitchen martyr.  No one else could make it, because Antoinette had only left the recipe with her one daughter.  That last sentence–that’s a common and heartbreaking sentence in our family.  "Remember that tortellini Antoinette used to make?  In was amazing!  How come you don’t make that ever?"  "Because she wouldn’t give the recipe to anyone but Flo after Si Anni published that Wedding Soup recipe in the paper.  None of us know what’s in it."  Eventually, Grandma found the cake recipe in her mother’s things, and about a decade later I got Antoinette and Potensia Florence’s cookbooks as a bridal gift.  I cried and cried and cried over them at the shower, as the women in my family knew I would.  And then I started getting gentle, persistent demands for the cake.  They’ll forgive me if I never have a child, but if I stop making this cake, I might have to look elsewhere for a family reunion to attend.

Now to business: this cake could easily be made safe for folks with wheat and gluten allergies or for people with dairy allergies–the flour can be replaced with almond flour and the butter with some vegetable spray.  It must never be made sans eggs or almond paste though, so folks with egg or nut allergies and aversions are out of luck.

Also, I am retrospectively terrified of my Great- and Great-great-Grandmothers.  I’ve made this cake many times, and I consider it to be a fairly demanding recipe.  I use a kitchen-aid, a very good copper bowl and a great whisk, and occasionally a hand-mixer if my arms are messed up.  They did it without any electric gadgets.  They would have been great arm wrestlers, I tell you what.  In other words, be prepared to either get out the small appliances or get in shape, or you’re not finishing this recipe.

Sarafina’s Almond Cake ( a.k.a Napolitan Almond Cake or Italian Almond sponge cake)

1 tablespoon butter
8 oz. almond paste, cut into small pieces
6 eggs, room temperature, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 to 1 teaspoon almond extract (Omit this if Simone wants to eat some cake.  Use 1/2 teaspoon for regular folks.  Use a full teaspoon if Mary wants to eat the whole cake)
pinch of salt
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup cake flour (substitute almond flour if you have wheat allergies or if you are making the cake for Mary)
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit.  If your oven is not well-behaved, get an over thermometer and make sure your temperature is true.  This cake is held up by eggs.

Butter a 9-inch spring-form pan.

Beat together the almond paste and the egg yolks, and then add in the extracts.  Edited to add . . .Add the flour in stages, stirring just enough to incorporate.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they reach soft peaks.  Slowly add the sugar to the egg whites, as you continue beating the egg whites.  Beat the whites until they reach stiff peaks, but be careful not to over-beat them (which would leave them dry and horrible, and require you to start over, and possibly cry).

Fold a small amount of the egg whites into the egg yolk and almond mixture to lighten it.  Then fold in the rest of the egg whites.  Fold carefully–you want to maintain the loft of the egg whites, but you want the batter to be thoroughly blended. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes.  The sides of the cake will pull away from the pan when it’s almost done, and it should be lovely and golden. 

Cool the cake thoroughly.  The cake will have puffed up in the oven, but will fall a bit as it cools.  Do not be sad–it’s supposed to fall a bit as it cools.  You’ll know all is right when you cut the cake.  It’s a true sponge cake–bouncy and moist and downright wonderful.  I’ve never had it go wrong. 

Serve with Creme Anglais (my favorite way), with whipped cream, with raspberry sauce, with dark chocolate shavings, or just with a nice coffee or glass of port. 

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