Italian

Just in time for Women’s day – here is a classic recipe for the delicious Italian mimosa cake.
It is usually prepared for Women’s day on 8th of March

The name of the cake is due to its shape resembling the flowers of the mimonsa plant

Level of recipe difficulty: medium

Ingredients:
For the cake base:

2 eggs
4 egg yolks
110 g sugar
100 g flour
20 g potato flour (fecola di patate – sold in Italian delis)

For the custard:

150 ml milk
150 ml double cream
100 g sugar
4 egg yolks
27 g flour
1 teaspoon vanilla flavour

For the dip:

50 ml water
1 table spoon orange blossom water
25 g sugar

For the cream with sugar:

100 ml double cream
10 g icing sugar

Method:
First prepare the cake base:

Mix the eggs and sugar in a bowl, using an electric whisk for 10 – 15 minutes at high speed. This is an important step to ensure the cake base is light and full of air bubbles.
Then add the egg yolks and continue mixing for another 6 minutes.

Once the eggs have been incorporated, add the flour and potato flour through a sieve, folding the flour in delicately by hand to add even more air into the mix.

Butter and flour a round baking tin, add the cake mix and bake at 180°C for circa 30 minutes.

While the cake bakes, prepare the custard:
In a small pan mix the milk, double cream and vanilla flavour.
In another small pan mix the egg yolks and sugar.
Heat both pans up, stirring constantly, but do not boil.
Stir the egg and sugar mix with a wooden spoon. Then add the flour and stir it until smooth.
Now add the warm milk and cream into the egg-sugar-flour mix and stir at medium temperature until the custard starts to set.
Ensure the flour in the custard cooks. Once the custard starts to bubble, remove it from the heat and pour it into a flat pyrex ramekin.

Cover the custard with cling film. The cling film needs to touch the custard. Then place it in the fridge to cool.

Prepare the dip:
In a small pan, mix the water, sugar and orange blossom water. Heat it up to let the sugar melt. Then put to one side to cool.

Assembling the cake:
When the cake base is baked through and a skewer comes out clean, remove it from the oven and let it cool on a flat surface , turning the cake base upside down.

Once the cake base has cooled completely, cut off the brown crust all around the cake to reveal the yellow cake. Now cut it into half.
Then with a long-bladed knife, cut one of these cake halfs carefully into three even layers. These will form the layers of the cake.
Cut the other half of the cake base into small cubes. These will be used to decorate the top and sides of the cake.

Whip the cream and caster sugar. Keep two table spoons of cream to one side
Place the first cake layer on a plate or cake stand.
With a table spoon drizzle a third of the dip onto the layer. Then spread some cream on top and then some custard.
Cover with another layer of cake. and repeat.
Then cover with the third cake layer.

Once you have assembled the three cake layers with the dip, cream and custard, cover the entire cake with custard and do the same with the sides of the cake.

Then cover the top and sides of the cake with the yellow cake cubes you have cut. The custard will act as ‘glue’.

Ensure the cake is covered with cubes from all sides, place in the fridge and voilà your mimosa cake is ready!

I hope you enjoyed. Happy Women’s day!

These delicious almond paste biscuits follow an original Sicilian recipe. Note, they are very sweet, however taste heavenly and can be baked in many colours and flavours. Here I chose to bake vanilla, pistachio and coconut flavoured biscuits (recipe below):

All lined up, before placing them in the oven:

After an 8 – 12 minute baking time:

Recipe:

Ingredients (for 3 people)

325 g caster sugar
280 g ground almonds
zest of 1 1/2 lemons
3 egg whites

Method

In a bowl, combine the sugar ground almonds.

Add lemon zest, egg whites and mix by hand until you obtain a smooth paste that has the consistency of marzipan.

Cover and put aside for one hour.

Preheat the oven to 165°C.

Knead the paste working very quickly, as it warms up rapidly and then turns sticky.
Separate the paste into as many parts as flavours that you have chosen to give them. Add the desired flavour and, if you like, some food colouring.

For vanilla biscuits: Add transparent vanilla flavouring and (if desired) yellow food colouring.

For pistachio biscuits: Add pistachio flavouring and green food colour.

For coconut biscuits: Add a little desiccated coconut into the paste, roll it into small spheres and then dust these with some more desiccated coconut.

When all shapes are ready, bake the biscuits at 165°C for between 8 to 15 minutes, depending on your oven.