Mrs. Pomerantz’s Cake

I’m such a nostalgic type. Maybe it’s because my moon is in Cancer. Fond of pleasant memories and excited by everything. Well, I’m also sentimental.

Smells and tastes bring me in the seconds to a distant place. To my mother’s embrace when I was a child, to my grannie’s kitchen, which always had 3 or 4 pots full of food for every one who comes to visit…

I don’t know Mrs. Pomerantz personally, only from stories. She is my husband’s patient and every time she comes for a treatment she brings a cake or a compote, and on his birthday she sent him a birthday cake, like in the seventies with whipped cream and chocolates, and between them lay a sheet of sweet grated apples. So, She placed the cake in a bell box, tied a blue ribbon, and stuffed a birthday greeting with the recipe “in case your wife likes the cake” she wrote.

For me, personally, it was hard to imagine how the apples, the whipped cream, and the bitter chocolate on the top combines together, it didn’t seem to be tasty.

You must taste it, he said to me. Just close your eyes and take a bite.

The second the cake touched the taste glands I floated. I floated not because it was the most delicious cake I had ever eaten. And it’s delicious, otherwise, I would not tell you about it. But because she made me sail to forgotten places, to childhood and innocence, to the corner coffee shop where my mother and I used to indulge ourselves every now and then with coffee and cream cake. And the smell of my childhood and lots of love flooded my nostrils, filled my mouth and went down and warmed my stomach and my heart.

 

 

Use a cake mold that will be easy to extract the cake from, since the first layer that will be arranged on it will be the layer of apples on which the base of the cake will be flattened. After baking, we will turn the cake upside down on a serving tray or into a storage box, and only then you will spread the cream. To facilitate the extraction of the cake, put a baking paper covering on both the bottom and sides of the mold.

Prepare a 24 cm round mold or 22/22 cm square one.

For the apples:

8 Granny Smith Apples – grate in a rough grater and transfer to a pot

Add 2 tablespoons of sugar

4 tablespoons of water

You can season with cinnamon or vanilla extract

Cook on medium heat until all the liquid evaporates and a thick, sticky jam is formed

Flatten on a mold coated with baking paper and let cool down

Heat an oven to 180 Celsius. Not turbo.

For the base:

6 eggs whites

3/4 cup sugar

45 grams of melted butter

150 grams of small chopped walnuts

A little bit of quality rum

Whip the egg whites with the sugar until the foam is firm and add the melted butter in a gentle spraying and also the rum.

Stop the mixer, add the nuts and mix gently with a spatula.

In a separate bowl, whisk together to a light puffy mass,

6 egg yolks

3/4 cup sugar

Gently Combine the mass of the egg whites and the egg yolk mixture and pour over the apple layer.

Bake for 45 minutes until lightly browned.

Turn off the oven and leave the cake in the oven for another 10-15 minutes.

Cool the cake and only then can it be turned on a serving tray or into a storage box. Gently peel off the baking paper and make the cream top:

250 g sweet cream

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Whip to firm foam and spread on the cake.

We’ll decorate the cake with crunchy dark chocolate and fresh cherries. And all that remains is to put on a mix of “the eighties best songs”, make some coffee or hot chocolate with whipped cream, for a really back to the eighties experience.