(3250). Neapolitan Cake (Gateau Napolitain)

Crush one pound and ten ounces of almonds with a pound and a quarter of sugar; reduce to a fine powder; pass this through a sieve. Sift on the table two pounds of flour, make a hollow in the center and in it lay the almond and sugar powder, a pound and a half of butter, a pinch of salt and four whole eggs; work the whole together just enough to form a smooth, firm paste, for if worked too much it is liable to crumble. Lay it in a vessel and leave in a cool place to rest; one hour later divide this paste into sixteen or twenty even parts and roll them to a quarter of an inch thick by six and a quarter inches in diameter; empty out the centers with a two-inch pastry cutter. Have two of the flats a little thicker and two inches wider in diameter than the others; bake on a buttered and floured baking sheet in a hot oven, and as soon as done take them out and leave to cool under the pressure of a weight; pare the large rounds eight inches in diameter and put them once more under a weight; when cold ice either with white or pink icing (No. 102); mask the small flats with well-strained and reduced apricot marmalade (No. 3675); now lay them one over the other; pare them evenly to have the cake six inches in diameter, and cover the whole with well-reduced and well-cooked apricot marmalade; place the cake on one of the large flats and over lay the second large one.

Decorate around with fanciful cuts of almond gum paste and the top with a cupola of royal icing or gum paste. Ornament around the edge of the large flat with a double border of the same paste and arrange the cake on a richly decorated stand. This cake is intended for a sideboard. It can also be made with almond biscuit (No. 3229).

(3251). Nougatine Cake (Gateau Nougatine)

Make a biscuit preparation with a pound of powdered sugar, a pound of flour, six whole eggs, eighteen yolks, six beaten whites, vanilla and a grain of salt. Bake this in a slack oven in three or four smooth fruit pie circles, six or seven inches in diameter by an inch to an inch and a half high. These circles should be buttered with clarified butter and glazed with fecula. After taking them from the oven remove from the circles and leave to get thoroughly cold for twelve hours. Prepare a buttered orange cream the same as for the Fleury cake (No. 3237;. Mince half a pound of sweet peeled almonds, previously dried on a sheet of paper then roasted in a pan to brown nicely. Cut the biscuits into transversal slices three-eighths of an inch thick, and taking up seven or eight of these, one by one. cover one side with a layer of the prepared cream, then put one on top of the other so as to form into a regular-shaped cake, and cover the top and sides at once with another layer of cream; now spread over the whole a layer of the roasted almonds, fastening them on with the blade of a knife, SO as to equalize its thickness; besprinkle lightly with fine vanilla sugar (No 3165), and push the cake for one minute in a hot oven, simply to have the sugar adhere to the almonds, then take out at once and when cold dress on a nankin.