Pellegrino Artusi wrote for both male and female readers, or he wouldn't have talked so often about politics, but his methods and tips were especially addressed to young ladies - wives and mothers that were new to housekeeping and children's upbringing. His introductory note to Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (1891) suggested, among other things, to always keep a temperature of 12o-14oC at home in order to preserve children's health!
Despite its being addressed to inexperienced cooks, Pellegrino's best-seller included only a few basic recipes. Luckily, the bulk of his cakes and pastries were easy to make at home although in some cases it was his own cook Marietta's instructions he shared. Today's post is about biscotto, described by the English translator as 'unleavened cake'. Recipe
no. 600 was a lemon-flavored white cake and recipe no. 601 a
chocolate-flavored dark cake.
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| A stroll on the beach - Michael Ancher, 1896 |
The recipes in Italian - unfortunately without a story or anecdote by Pellegrino Artusi:
"600. BISCOTTO.
Lavorate per mezz'ora almeno i rossi d'uovo collo zucchero e una cucchiaiata delle dette farine, servendovi di un mestolo. Montate le chiare ben sode ed aggiungetele; mescolate adagio e, quando saranno immedesimate, fate cadere da un vagliettino le due farine, che prima avrete asciugate al sole o al fuocco. Cuoccetelo al forno o al fono da campagna in una teglia ove venga alto tre dita circa, ma prima ungetela col burro diaccio e spolverizzatela di zucchero a velo misto a farina. In questi dolci con le chiare montate si può anche tenere il seguente metodo, e cioè: dimenar prima i rossi d'uovo con lo zucchero, poi gettarvi la farina e dopo una buona lavorazione montar sode le chiare, versarne due cucchiaiate per rammorbidire il composto, indi le rimanenti, per incorporarvele adagio adagio.
601. BISCOTTO DI CIOCCOLATA
Grattate la cioccolata e mettetela in una catinella con lo zucchero e i rossi d'uovo e dimenateli con un miestolo; poi aggiungete la farina e lavorare il composto per più di mezz'ora; per ultimo le chiare montate mescolando adagio. Cuoccetelo come l'antecedente."
Artusi distinguished biscotto from pane di Spagna that was made with refined or Hungarian flour and (more) confectioner's sugar but, for today's standards, both cakes might be used as the base for layered desserts. Of course, they are not exactly the same.
In the first place, 19th century recipes other than sponge cake, including biscotto, often used starch (as in cornflour or potato flour) and confectioner's sugar - resulting in wonderfully light textures. These cakes were served for dessert on their own but, adapted for modern use, they wouldn't be easy to slice horizontally. For old-fashioned layered desserts, the cakes were usually baked in separate pans. (One such example is Dobos torta.) Secondly, late nineteenth and early 20th century recipes for chocolate cake used grated chocolate instead of cocoa powder - on both sides of the Atlantic. (The devil's food recipe that I adapted few years back was the only version with cocoa powder from a selection of 23 cakes by A.C. Vangalder.) Third point: Italian housewives in Pellegrino Artusi's time mixed the ingredients for sponge cakes and biscotto in their own particular fashion. Although the first step was to beat yolks with sugar as modern bakers would do, the next was to add either flour or meringue - not both and/or in turns. The 30-minute routine of beating the first two ingredients was even prolonged to an hour in some cases, which meant that old-fashioned baking required lots of patience.
Fourthly, a lot of homebakers before 1900 made cakes and biscuits with powdered sugar. In the Early Modern period, housewives would crush small amounts of the popular spice in a mortar and the tradition went on until the first bags of confectioner's sugar appeared in the market. The choice between confectioner's sugar (zucchero a velo) and powdered sugar (zucchero in polvere) by Pellegrino Artusi might or might not be deliberate. Confectoner's sugar was powdered sugar with added cornstarch, a natural anti-cakeing agent. Since both types of his unleavened cake were more or less prepared in the same way, it's not unlikely that Pellegrino used confectioner's sugar in the first instance because the person who gave him the recipe did so.
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