. Skip to main content

Lemon, almond & white chocolate torta caprese



Hey, friends! How about a tangy yet sweet and all together fluffy Italian cake this week? This is a take on my Italian friend, Corinne’s, lemon and almond caprese, with absolutely no flour.

You know how a cake flavor brings back a certain country or region or even the warmth of summer days where you once tasted that dolce or sweet? This dessert certainly carries the warmth of southern Italy, and brings back memories of cliffside Mediterranean towns overgrown with lemons.

The Sorrentine coast is overrun with orange and lemon trees, vineyards and olive trees in their terrassed glory.  The fragrance during the springtime can be deliciously overwhelming. Considered since antiquity as a place of great physical beauty and diversity, the Amalfi Coast beyond Sorrento and the island of Capri, the namesake of this cake, is suspended between sea and mountain, and also a UNESCO world heritage site.  Legend has it that the chef “forgot” to add flour to this cake and the rest is history. Enjoy a taste of the sunny south of Italy through this recipe :

3 eggs separated
150 g sugar (1-1/4 cup)
200 g of almond flour
2 heaping tablespoons of sour cream or yogurt
60 g of butter or oil
100 g melted white chocolate (optional)
2 heaping tablespoons of cornstarch
1/2 cup of limoncello or sweetened lemon juice
Grated Lemon zest, about 1-1/2 tablespoon
1-1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
Pinch of salt

Powdered sugar or slivered almonds for dusting

Preheat oven to 190 C (375 F). Separate eggs and in a bowl, beat egg whites until they form stiff peaks and you can turn bowl over without them falling. In a separate bowl, mix yolks, sugar, almond powder, cream, butter.  Then mix in all other ingredients. Fold egg whites delicately with a spatula into mixture. Pour into a spring form pan (23 cm), prepared beforehand with a sheet of wax paper. Bake for 30 minutes. Once cool, remove from pan, peel wax paper off, dust with powdered sugar or almonds or both.

Salut, les amis! Que diriez-vous d'un gâteau italien délicieusement acidulé, sucré et moelleux au même temps en tant que souvenir de voyage cette semaine? Voici la recette de mon amie italienne, Corinne, pour une torta caprese au citron et aux amandes, sans farine. 

Vous savez comment une saveur rappelle un certain pays ou une région ou même la chaleur des jours d'été où vous avez goûté un "dolce" (douceur ou patisserie) ? Ce dessert nous fait revivre la chaleur du sud de l'Italie et rappelle les souvenirs des villes méditerranéennes à flanc de falaise, dans ce sud dominé de citronniers. 

La côte sorrentine est parsemé d'orangers et de citronniers, de vignes et d'oliviers en terrasses vertigineuses. Le parfum au printemps peut être délicieusement enivrant. Considérée depuis l'Antiquité comme un lieu d'une grande beauté et de diversité, la côte amalfitaine, au sud-est de Sorrente et Capri, le lieu d'origine se ce gâteau, suspendue entre mer et montagne, est un site du patrimoine mondiale de l'UNESCO. La petite histoire raconte que le cuisinier avait “oublié” de rajouter la farine, et le résultat avait tellement de succès qu’il continuait à le preparer ainsi. J'espère que le parfum délicat de ce gâteau vous rappellera cette Italie ensoleillée du sud: 

Recette
3 œufs, séparés 
150 g de sucre 
200 g de poudre d'amande 
2 cuillères à soupe de fromage blanc ou de yaourt 
60 g de beurre ou d'huile 
100 g de chocolat blanc fondu (facultatif) 
2 cuillères à soupe de fécule de maïs 
1 petit verre de limoncello ou de jus de citron légèrement sucré 
Zeste de citron râpé, environ 1-1/2 cuillère à soupe 
8 g de levure chimique 
Une pincée de sel 
Sucre glace ou amandes effilées pour saupoudrer

Préchauffer le four à 190 C (375 F). Séparer les œufs et dans un bol à part, battre les blancs d'œufs jusqu'à ce vous obtenez des blancs en neige très fermes. Dans un autre bol, mélanger les jaunes d'oeuf, le sucre, la poudre d'amande, fromage blanc et beurre.  Ensuite rajouter tous les autres ingrédients, une à la fois. Incorporer délicatement les blancs d'oeufs dans le mélange. Verser dans un moule à charnière (23 cm) préalable préparé avec une couche de papier de cuisson. Cuire au four 30 minutes. Tester au milieu avec une curedent que c'est bien sec. Laisser refroidir, démouler et saupoudrer de sucre de glace ou d'amandes effilées ou les deux.






Comments

  1. Oh WOW, you have outdone yourself. I can imagine eating this cake with my coffee.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Victoria Sponge cake revisited (gluten-free)

Here's a version of a Victoria sponge cake that kind of evolved on its own. This is a fairly straightforward layer cake. It involves 2 cake disks, buttercream and strawberry jam, decorated thereafter with some powdered sugar, or more cream and strawberries. I did, however, take liberties... Well, first of all, I didn't have any jam but I did have strawberries so made a quick jam by simmering about a dozen diced strawberries, a couple tablespoons of sugar and a star anise which I love adding lately to all jams (try it with fig jam, awesome combination).  But I digress... use some jam if you have some at home!  I also swirled one of the disks with raspberry reduction, mixed with a bit of the batter to add some color.  (Also, no need to do this except for a bit of fun or if you're always experimenting like me). Here's the rest of the recipe made with 2 eggs, a sign of the times : Batter: 1/2 cup softened butter or margarine 1 cup of sugar 2 eggs 1/2 cup of milk or juice...

Checkerboard cake

This was actually another accidental cake!  I had been wanting to make one of these checkerboard cakes for a while, and one day, I realized I had all the ingredients ready to go in my freezer, so in essence it went pretty quickly.  I often make cake disks and use them for cakes I'm making, and freeze extra disks for later use. So I had 2 chocolate cake disks and 2 vanilla cake disks in the freezer.  All that was needed was the cream and that went pretty easily since I also had some chocolate mousse frosting I had made previously. This was my first attempt, and although it was far from perfect (leaning to one side, lol), it turned out much better and easier than I expected. For tips, I would say 1) have some good cake cutters (I used glass cups and it's not ideal) 2) spread the frosting fairly thinly in between the layers in order to see the checkboard pattern 3) if you freeze cake disks or frosting ahead of time, it is a time saver, in a delulu kind of way 4) the wow fact...

Clafoutis with cherries

Clafoutis is one of my favorite French words because it can make me feel like I’m cursing or insulting someone, "You club-foot-id i o t. » Ok, only me ?! Never mind... It’s also the most delicious flan, so that’s double the fun, and the best part is it's quite easy to make. I often make different kinds depending on the fruits of the season and here you have pictures of an all cherry version, because our tree was so abundant with cherries just ready to harvest. Here's the recipe : 3 eggs 1/2 cup sugar (100 g) 3/4 cup flour (110 g) 1 cup milk (250 ml) 1 teaspoon vanilla or half teaspoon vanilla bean 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons melted butter 1/2 pound of cherries (300 g) Preheat oven to 350° F / 180° C.  Butter a deep dish, pan or ramekin. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until you get a smooth batter. Add milk, flour, vanilla, salt, melted butter. Place the cherries (remove stems, but no need to remove pits) in the pan or ramekin. Pour the batter over the cherries. Bak...