easy – Page 4 – Deja Food

An unusual and simple cake, with the bonus of being gluten-free!

As I was perusing one of my several vintage baking books, I came across this recipe – not in any specific allergy-related book or even chapter of a book. No, it was just included with a bunch of other recipes in a book aimed at the commercial baker, dating from the early 20th century. I have scaled the recipe down from the originally huge quantities, but otherwise, it is unchanged.

This cake is made using potato flour. IMPORTANT: Potato flour is made from RAW potatoes and is a bright white and very fine powder, with no discernible taste. It is NOT dehydrated cooked potato, which is coarse, yellowish and tastes of potato. That makes mashed potatoes when reconstituted and will add a similar texture to your cake. Readers in the US: use potato starch flour.

At first, I thought the cake got its name from it colour, because, as you can see from the photo, it is indeed a very pale cake. However, after tasting the cake, I’m now of the opinion that its name comes from its texture. It has the same quality of settled snow, in that there is a thin ‘crust’ on the top and soft, friable, almost powder-like substance underneath. The cake dissolves in the mouth – but in a different way to, say, Melting Moments. It’s incredibly light and tender and is best enjoyed simply, where it can really shine.

That said, the cream that I have teamed with it is pretty awesome itself. It is a variation of the filling I used for the mille-feuilles in the final of The Great British Bake Off. The mixture of sweetened cream cheese and whipped double cream is given a firmer set by the addition of gelatine, which helps to hold in the moisture and makes for a very luscious, rich, creamy and mousse-like texture. Just to continue the frozen theme, it’s like the very best soft-serve ice-cream, without the cold.

I’ve brightened the filling with some Apricot Jam, but any other sharp jam would also work well.

I bought the potato flour at Holland & Barrett.

Snow Cake

112g unsalted butter – softened
112g caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
2 level tsp baking powder
225g potato flour

Preheat the oven to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
Grease and line the base of a 20cm diameter, tall cake tin – not a sandwich tin. The high sides will help shield the cake from the direct heat of the oven and keep it from becoming over-coloured.
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy – 5-10 minutes.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well each time.
Add the remaining ingredients and beat thoroughly – a good 5-10 minutes. Ordinarily, you’d run the risk of over-beating a cake mixture, which would develop the gluten in the flour, leading to a tough cake. Since the potato flour has no gluten, there’s no need to worry about this. You want to try and get as much air into the mixture as possible to make for a light texture in the cooked cake.
Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface.
Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the tin 180 degrees and bake for a further 10-15 minutes, for a total of 30-35 minutes. When you turn the cake after 20 minutes, slip a sheet of baking parchment over the top of the tin to keep the colour from getting too dark.
When cooked, remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

Luscious Cream Filling

50ml double cream
50g caster sugar
2 leaves gelatine

1tsp vanilla extract
150g cream cheese, room temperature
250ml double cream

Soak the leaves of gelatine in cold water for 15 minutes.
Warm the double cream and caster sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
Shake off the excess water from the gelatine and add to the pan.
Stir until the gelatine has melted, then remove from the heat and set aside.
Once the mixture has cooled a little, pour it into a bowl and add the remaining ingredients.
Whip the mixture until the cream has thickened and it is soft and pillowy.

To Assemble

Even though this is a light sponge cake, the weight of the top half will be too heavy initially, to avoid squidging (technical term) the cream out of the sides of the cake. Therefore, I strongly recommend using the following method to assemble your cake.

200g apricot jam – warmed and pureed

Using cocktail sticks, mark the midpoint of the cooled cake around the edge and cut it horizontally.
Spread the cut side of each cake half with apricot jam.
Put the bottom half of the cake back into the tin in which it was baked.
Slip a band of parchment or food-grade acetate around the inside of the tin, between the cake and the inside of the tin.
Smooth or pipe the cream filling over the bottom of the cake, making sure it reaches the edges of the cake.
Place the other half on top and press gently.
Cover with cling-film and chill for 2-3 hours, until the gelatine in the cream has set.
Remove from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature.
Remove the cake from the tin and gently peel the parchment/acetate from around the filling.
Smooth with a knife if necessary.
Dust with icing sugar to serve.

This recipe was copied from the Ipswich Journal into the manuscript book from a Norfolk household in the early 19th century. The manuscript was eventually purchased by the Wellcome Library and its contents digitised and made available online, which is where I discovered it. It was the simplicity of the recipe that appealed – just 3 ingredients: Flour, yeast, apples. I immediately mixed up a batch and was delighted with the results – a lovely open textured bread with a bite/chew similar to sourdough, but with a delicate, underlying sweetness which, when toasted, almost tasted like honey. It went brilliantly, un-buttered, with some strong cheddar and a crisp apple.

Original Recipe — Source: MS3082, Wellcome Library Collection

To continue the week of coincidences, I later found this recipe reprinted word for word in my 1950 copy of Farmhouse Fare, recipes sent in to and collected by Farmer’s Weekly magazine. Which means that someone else copied the same recipe from the Ipswich Advertiser and kept it alive in their family for 150 years to be revived in 1950. Utterly delightful!

It’s a regular in this household – I hope you enjoy it also.

Apple Bread

500g strong, white bread flour
1 sachet easy-blend yeast or 20g fresh yeast
4 Bramley Apples

Put the apples in a saucepan and cover with water.
Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the apples are soft and cooked. The skins might split, but as long as the water is just simmering, the apples should hold together – fast boiling water will only get you apple soup.
Lift the apples from the water (you might need some water later). Remove the skins and scrape the cooked apple flesh into a bowl.
Sieve the cooked apple to make a smooth puree. If using fresh yeast, you can crumble it into the puree and whisk until thoroughly mixed.
Put the flour and dry yeast into a bowl and stir to combine.
Add the apple puree gradually and stir to combine into a soft dough. You should need between 250-300g of apple puree. If you need more liquid, use some of the water the apples were cooked in.
If you have a mixer with a dough hook, work the dough for 10 minutes on the lowest speed. Otherwise, work it by hand, but be careful not to add too much flour in the kneading – you want to keep the dough nice and soft.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover and leave the mixture to double in size.
When sufficiently risen, tip the dough out of the bowl and knock back.
Shape into loaves and put into a 1kg greased loaf tin.
Cover lightly with a cloth and leave to rise for a further 30-45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown and the base sounds hollow when tapped. If the bread appears cooked, but not sounding hollow, remove from the tin and return to the oven for 5-10 minutes to crisp up.
Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.