Last week I had the great pleasure of dining at Cantinetta Antinori, one of my all-time favorite Florentine eateries. As a starter, I enjoyed a raw artichoke and parmesan cheese salad. It was dressed with the finest olive oil and fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper.
I didn’t get the chance to photograph my salad, as sometimes that just seems inappropriate. But, I haven’t forgotten the salad and today I found a nice primer on how to prepare it.
Facciamo cuocere una torta! A torta margherita is a traditional Italian cake. One of the most popular cakes in Italy, it was named after the country’s first Italian queen: Margherita di Savoia.
The first recorded recipe for the torta was in the 19th century, but it probably had been handed down from mother to daughter for centuries earlier.
I recently baked a yummy torta margherita from a box mix in my Florentine kitchen and next I wanted to try one from scratch. Here’s my guide.
If you want to try one too, here’s the modern recipe:
5 eggs
180 grams sugar
zest of a lemon to taste
150 grams flour
150 grams potato starch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
vanilla, 1 Tablespoon I’m guessing
salt
80 grams melted butter, cooled
powdered sugar to sprinkle on top of baked cake
Beat eggs, sugar and zest of a lemon on high until you get a light mixture that looks like the example in the Youtube video. The mixture should be a pale yellow and hold its form enough that you can “write with it” as la signora says.
Next, with mixer on low, add flour and starch, baking powder, salt and vanilla. The vanilla in the video is a powdered form available in Italy. La signora reminds us to only mix the flours, etc., in; you don’t want to lose the lift you got by beating the eggs.
Last, slowly mix in the melted butter.
Pour mixture into a round baking tin, buttered, floured and lined with parchment paper. Bake at 180 degrees C. for 40 – 50 min. Sprinkle the cooled cake with powdered sugar.
It worked! My yummy cake looks like this:
And I eat it like this:
But, you want to make it without potato flour?
Since we, in our American kitchens, don’t typically have potato starch on hand, I believe it is possible to change the recipe slightly, by adding an additional 100 grams of 00 flour. Here’s another recipe I found on the internet for a Torta Margherita sensa fecola di patate. I haven’t tried it yet, but probably will soon.
Tempo di preparazione: 20 minuti, Tempo di cottura: 40 minuti, Tempo totale: 1 ora
Ingredienti per Torta Margherita senza fecola da 22 cm di diametro
250 g di farina 00)
200 g di zucchero
80 g di burro
4 uova
1 bustina di vanillina
1 bustina di lievito per dolci Paneangeli
120 ml di latte
zucchero a velo vanigliato q.b.
Buona fortuna!
Always on the search for history, I found the following article in the August 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine.
In every issue of BBC History Magazine, picture editor Sam Nott brings you a recipe from the past. In this article, Sam recreates Torta Margherita, a 19th-century cake from Italy that is both gluten and dairy-free.
This recipe comes from Pellegrino Artusi’s 1891 cookbook La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiare Bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Fine Dining), and is a cake that has been enjoyed in many Italian households.
Artusi’s introduction to his cookbook gives an insight into the origins of the cake. He originally made it for a friend of his, Antonio Mattei, who took the recipe and, after making a few changes, sold it in his restaurant.
The cake was such a success that it soon became the norm to finish a meal with Torta Margherita. The moral of the story, according to Artusi, is that if you grab opportunities when they arise (as Mattei did) fortune will favour you above someone who merely sits back and waits.
Ingredients
120g of potato starch, sifted
120g of fine white sugar (caster sugar)
4 eggs
Juice or zest of a lemon (optional)
Butter and baking paper (to line the baking tin)
Method
Separate the yolks from the whites and beat the yolks together with the sugar until pale and creamy. Add the lemon (optional) and the potato starch and beat.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then delicately fold the whites through the batter. Place the mixture into a round cake tin (buttered and lined with baking paper). Bake at a moderate heat for about an hour or until golden on top and firm to the touch.
Time: 60 minutes
Verdict:
When I found this recipe I was intrigued: a gluten and dairy-free cake that tastes nice? And with only three ingredients? But the picture in the recipe book looked very enticing so I gave it a try.
And I’m glad I did! I ended up making several of these as they were so delicious; friends and family devoured them all. The cake is incredibly light, goes well with tea or coffee, and takes just an hour to make.
Summertime, and the living is easy. Strawberries abound in the market. I think they are just asking me to make them into jam! Don’t you hear them calling?
Listen closely.
Cut the lovely scarlet berries up.
Put them in a large saucepan with a little water, some sugar to taste, a little splash of lemon juice, and pectin.
Bring the mixture to a rapid boil, lower heat, simmer until you think it looks right.
Looking good!
I call done!
Let the stawberry goodness cool down and then ladle it into canning jars. One jar done, 6 to go. Then into the freezer.
Tomorrow morning, and many tomorrows after, perhaps through the winter, this bright red yummy jam will be inhaled on wholegrain English muffins, toast, in yogurt and on ice cream. I just can’t wait!
Only “toast” in Italy means a lovely little pannini made with white sandwich bread, a thin slice of cheese, and a thin slice of ham, all toasted. OMG, toast should always be this good!
One bite and you can tell this lunch is going to be heavenly.
And I forgot to photograph all of the steps. Oh well, this isn’t a cooking so I suppose it’s okay. I bet you can follow along anyway.
So, you know what these are:
And you know what this is. And you know where it is too, I bet.
And this is how it looked 30 minutes later. My Victoria sponge turned out well. It is called that, so they say, bc Queen Victoria liked it. I daresay she never baked one herself! It isn’t hard, so she could have, but she had all those servants to do it for her.
After the cake cools, you slice it in two horizontally and spread it with strawberry jam.
On top of the jam you spread (or pipe–ha ha, as if–I spread it) whipped sweetened cream. Then you put the top half of cake back on top, sprinkle it with powdered sugar and fresh cut strawberries if you’ve got them, and voila, Victoria sandwich. Perfect for tea time, according to all the Brits I know.
Mine tasted good but it would not win any awards for its appearance. I am only a home cook!
I should have posted this yesterday. But, it isn’t an April fool’s joke, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.
Many years ago my mother and I went to England. I had art historical research to conduct and she had a daughter to keep company and London and surrounding areas were the perfect place for both of our activities.
I won’t say that we loved all the food we encountered on our trip. Far from it! Grilled tomatoes and baked beans for breakfast seemed weird, but not nearly as strange as some of the meats we encountered.
High tea at Liberty was a huge success, as was high tea at Harrod’s. I mean, what’s not to love? Pour the clotted cream on anything and I will eat it all up! Maybe even on grilled tomatoes. Well, maybe not tomatoes. But anything else.
But while I have a generalized happy memory of all the dainty sandwiches and biscuits served at high tea, there is only one dessert, or pudding, that I have never forgotten. What made it more memorable was that I found it in a church basement cafeteria, somewhere in London.
My mom and I were visiting this particular church in order to see the 19th century neoclassical sculpture in the nave and when we were done it was lunch time and we were hungry. We realized there was a cafeteria in the basement and made our way there.
I don’t remember what we had for lunch, but I do remember encountering something called rhubarb fool in the pudding section of the cafeteria buffet. I had never heard of a fool, but I could tell it was made with cream and I was sold.
One bite of that rich combination of tart rhubarb compote mixed with whipped English cream and I was in heaven. I’ve never looked back.
Enjoyed with a shortbread biscuit, life is never sweeter!
Here’s a recipe and a link. The internet is full of rhubarb (and other fruit) fool information.
Serves 4
450g rhubarb, roughly chopped
5 tbsp golden caster sugar
300ml double cream
100ml Greek yoghurt
Small bunch of mint, leaves only
1. Put the rhubarb in a pan with 4 tbsp sugar and heat gently, covered, until tender. Uncover, turn up the heat slightly, and allow some of the juice to evaporate. Taste for sweetness, adding more sugar if necessary, then drain the rhubarb, reserving the juice. Allow to cool.
2. Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks, then stir in the yoghurt. Fold in the cooled rhubarb, and chill for at least an hour.
3. Serve in glasses with the reserved juice to pour over the top, and a few mint leaves on each portion.
Is fool the finest British summer dessert, both for ease and sheer, simple delight, and if so, what’s your favourite flavour? And what else do you like to do with rhubarb over the summer, now that crumble season’s finally on its way out?
get back, lauretta! 
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