I want to begin this chapter with a confession that I suspect will surprise some readers who have followed the argument of this book from the beginning and have come to expect a certain consistency of position from their author.
I did not, for many years, make the preparations in this chapter.
This is not because I was unaware of them. The egg-white preparations of the Level 2 festival kitchen have a documented history in Bravian baking that is nearly as long as the history of the Level 2 standard itself, and I encountered them in historical recipe books and in the teaching materials of my own Home Economics training long before I had any professional or pedagogical reason to develop them myself. The technique was not unknown to me. The ingredients were entirely familiar. The theology, as I have laid it out in this book, is clear and well-reasoned: beaten egg whites do not constitute biological or chemical leavening, they are mechanical technique of a kind that the Level 2 standard explicitly permits, and a baker who observes at Level 2 may use them with a clear conscience and sound theological justification.
I still did not make them. Not during the feast season. For years.
The reason, when I finally examined it honestly enough to articulate it, was my mother. She did not make them, and I had absorbed, somewhere in the decades of watching her kitchen and inheriting her habits and her unspoken standards, the feeling that beaten egg whites during the feast season were not quite right — not forbidden, exactly, not theologically indefensible, but not quite right in some way that I could not precisely identify and therefore could not precisely dispute. It was the feeling rather than the argument, and the feeling was strong enough that I let it stand unexamined for longer than I should have.
What changed my mind was a student — the same kind of student who changed my mind about several things I had held too comfortably for too long, which is perhaps the best argument for spending a career in teaching that I know. She came to my advanced baking course from one of the older port-town families, the kind of family that has been in Porterville for so many generations that their household traditions have calcified into something between custom and commandment, and she observed Level 2 and had observed Level 2 all her life, and she made the most beautiful egg-white unleavened wafers I had ever seen. She made them matter-of-factly, without any sense that she was doing something daring or unusual, because in her household they were neither. They were simply what one made at Level 2 during the feast season, and they were made well, and they were genuinely excellent.
I asked her about the theology. She looked at me with the mild patience of someone who has explained something obvious to a slightly slower interlocutor and said that beaten egg whites were available at Level 2 because the standard was defined by what was removed rather than by what remained, and what remained at Level 2 included mechanical technique, and beaten egg whites were mechanical technique. This was, I noted, exactly the argument I had made in Chapter 1 of this book, which I had apparently been making with more conviction in print than I had been living out in my kitchen.
I went home and made the wafers. They were excellent. I have made them every feast season since, and I have included them in the Stone Hearth Bakery’s Level 2 festival offerings, and they have been among the most popular preparations we produce during the feast week. My mother, if she is watching, has had the grace not to comment.
I tell this story not to undermine the theology of the chapter — the theology is sound and I stand behind it — but to acknowledge honestly that the feeling one brings to festival baking is not always the same as the reasoning one has worked out about it, and that sometimes it takes another person’s quiet competence to close that gap. If this chapter introduces the egg-white preparations to bakers who have the same unexamined resistance I had, I hope the recipes themselves will do for them what my student’s matter-of-fact proficiency did for me.
The Egg White as Leavening: A Technical Review
I described the basic physics of beaten egg whites in Chapter 1 and returned to them at various points in Chapters 3 and 8. I want to revisit them here with more precision, because this chapter demands a more complete technical understanding of egg-white behavior than any of the previous chapters has required, and the baker who enters these preparations with a vague sense that beaten egg whites make things light will find herself unable to manage the specific demands that each preparation makes.
The egg white is composed primarily of water — approximately eighty-eight percent by weight — and proteins, the most important of which for the baker’s purposes are ovalbumin, conalbumin, and ovomucin. In their natural state, these proteins are folded into compact globular structures that coexist peacefully with the water surrounding them. When the egg white is beaten, two things happen simultaneously and in interaction with each other: air bubbles are incorporated into the liquid, and the mechanical energy of the beating causes the protein molecules to unfold and denature — to uncurl from their compact globular state into extended chains that migrate to the surfaces of the air bubbles and form thin, continuous protein films around each bubble. These protein films are strong enough to hold the air bubble in suspension against the tendency of bubbles to coalesce and escape, and the result of this process, carried to sufficient completion, is a stable foam in which millions of microscopic air bubbles are each individually encased in a network of denatured egg-white proteins.
When this foam enters a hot oven, two further things happen. The air in each bubble expands with heat, pushing outward against the protein film. Simultaneously, the heat causes the protein films to coagulate — to set permanently into rigid structures rather than the flexible films of the raw foam. If the oven temperature and the foam stability are correctly managed, the protein films coagulate around the expanded bubbles at the moment of maximum expansion, locking in the lifted and aerated structure of the foam in a permanent form. This is the mechanism by which a meringue wafer acquires its crisp, rigid, completely dry character after baking: the foam has been expanded by heat and locked in the expanded state by coagulation.
If the oven temperature is too high, the proteins coagulate before the bubbles have fully expanded, and the preparation is dense and heavy rather than light. If the oven temperature is too low, the bubbles expand fully but the proteins coagulate slowly and incompletely, and the preparation collapses as it cools because the protein structure that should have locked in the expanded foam has not set firmly enough to do so. Managing oven temperature for egg-white preparations is therefore more consequential than for any other preparation in this book, and the baker should not treat the temperature specifications in the recipes that follow as approximations.
The stability of the foam before it enters the oven is the other primary variable, and it is governed by three factors: the freshness of the eggs, the cleanliness of the bowl and beater, and the beating technique itself.
Egg freshness affects foam stability because older egg whites have a higher pH — they become more alkaline as they age — which causes the proteins to denature more readily during beating but also produces a foam with coarser, less stable bubbles than a fresh egg white beaten to the same apparent volume. Fresh eggs produce finer, more stable foams that hold their structure longer before deflation begins, and the baker preparing egg-white preparations should use the freshest eggs available.
Bowl and beater cleanliness is not a minor precaution. Fat, in any quantity, interferes catastrophically with foam formation because fat molecules compete with the egg-white proteins for the bubble surfaces and, being more surface-active, displace the proteins and prevent the formation of the continuous protein films that stabilize the foam. Even a trace of egg yolk — which contains fat in the form of lipid-rich lecithin — in a bowl of egg whites will reduce the foam’s stability and volume significantly. The bowl and beater used for egg-white preparations must be completely free of fat: no trace of butter, no trace of oil, no trace of yolk. Washing with hot water and thoroughly drying before beginning is the minimum precaution, and running the bowl rim with a cut lemon before beginning — an old Bravian kitchen trick that I learned from one of the older catering guild members — will remove any residual fat traces that washing has not fully eliminated.
Beating technique determines the character of the foam produced, and understanding the stages of foam development allows the baker to stop the beating at precisely the point required for a given preparation rather than at an arbitrary judgment of doneness.
The foam passes through four distinct stages during beating. In the foamy stage, the whites are broken down into a loose, large-bubbled, transparent foam with little structural strength: a bowl of foamy egg whites can be poured out almost as easily as liquid. In the soft peak stage, the foam is white and opaque, with fine bubbles, and holds its shape just enough to form soft, drooping peaks when the beater is lifted: the peaks fold over rather than standing upright. This stage represents approximately two-thirds of the foam’s maximum volume and is suitable for preparations where the foam is to be folded into a heavier batter and where some deflation during folding is expected and acceptable. In the stiff peak stage, the foam holds peaks that stand upright without drooping when the beater is lifted, has a glossy surface, and has achieved close to its maximum stable volume. This is the stage at which the foam is most useful for preparations where it is the primary structural and leavening element. In the overbeaten stage, the foam loses its glossy surface and begins to look dry, grainy, and separated: the protein network has become so rigid that it can no longer hold the water in the bubble films, and the foam is beginning to break down rather than continuing to develop. An overbeaten foam cannot be corrected and must be discarded.
The preparations in this chapter specify the stage required for each preparation, and the baker should develop the eye and hand for distinguishing these stages through practice before the feast season requires her to make these preparations under conditions where a failed batch is genuinely inconvenient.
On Cream of Tartar and Its Use at Level 2
I addressed the question of cream of tartar at Level 2 in Chapter 3 and expressed the position I hold — that cream of tartar used as a foam stabilizer rather than as a chemical leavening agent is available at Level 2 — with appropriate acknowledgment of the minority view that prefers to avoid it entirely. I will not repeat that argument at length here, but I want to note its practical relevance before the recipes begin.
Cream of tartar stabilizes beaten egg-white foam by lowering the pH of the egg white, which slows protein denaturation and produces smaller, more stable bubbles than untreated egg white. The practical effect is a foam that reaches stiff peaks more reliably, holds those peaks for a longer period before deflation begins, and produces a finished meringue of better texture and more consistent character than an untreated foam would yield under comparable conditions. It is a genuine practical aid, and the baker who uses it should not feel that she is compromising the integrity of her Level 2 observance: as I argued in Chapter 3, the function determines the category, and cream of tartar in this application is functioning as a stabilizer, not as a leavening agent.
The baker who prefers not to use cream of tartar for reasons of personal conviction should note that all of the preparations in this chapter can be made without it. The foam will be marginally less stable and must be used somewhat more quickly after beating, which requires more efficient organization of the preparation process, but the finished products are equally good when the baker works efficiently. The recipes specify cream of tartar quantities where I use it in my own practice, and note the adjustment required for the preparation made without it.
Recipe 28 — Meringue-Based Unleavened Wafers
Level: 2 only
A note on this recipe: the meringue wafer is the most completely egg-white-dependent preparation in this chapter and the one that most directly showcases what beaten egg whites can produce in the Level 2 festival kitchen. It contains no flour — or a very small quantity of flour, in the stabilized variation I describe below — and its entire structure is provided by the protein network of the beaten egg whites set around their incorporated air by the heat of a low oven. The result, when the technique is correctly executed, is a preparation of remarkable lightness: completely dry throughout, dissolving almost instantly in the mouth, with a delicate crispness that is unlike anything produced by any other preparation in this book and that occupies a position at the sweet festival table that nothing else can fill.
I want to be clear about what a meringue wafer is in the context of the Level 2 festival kitchen: it is a sweet preparation, appropriate for the sweet festival table, and it is not a bread substitute or a flatbread variant. It is its own thing — a preparation that uses the mechanical leavening available at Level 2 to produce a result that has no equivalent at any other level — and it should be served and understood as such.
Makes approximately 30 small wafers
Ingredients:
- 4 egg whites, at room temperature — room-temperature egg whites beat to greater volume than cold ones, because the proteins are more mobile at room temperature and unfold more readily under the mechanical action of the beater; remove the eggs from the cold room at least thirty minutes before beginning
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar — optional at Level 2; see note above and adjustment below for the preparation made without it
- ¾ cup honey — the primary sweetener; I use honey rather than refined sugar in this preparation as a matter of Bravian culinary tradition and also because honey’s hygroscopic character, which would be a disadvantage in a cracker that must remain dry over many days, is less problematic in a wafer that is consumed within two to three days of making and whose slight tendency to soften at the surface in humid conditions is acceptable; the character of the honey contributes meaningfully to the flavor of the finished wafer, and I use a mild floral honey rather than the robust dark honey of the hill country, which would overpower the delicate egg-white flavor
- Flavoring additions, from the regional variations below
A note on honey in meringue: Honey-based meringue behaves differently from a conventional meringue made with refined sugar, and the baker should understand these differences before beginning. Honey contains more water than refined sugar, which means the foam is more liquid initially and reaches stable peaks more slowly. Honey also contains natural acids that interact with the egg-white proteins in ways that modified the stability of the foam. The result of these differences is that honey meringue requires more careful management during beating and produces a finished wafer that is slightly denser and slightly less crisp than a comparable sugar meringue, but with a depth of flavor that no sugar meringue can match. For the purposes of the Level 2 festival kitchen, I consider the flavor advantage worth the additional attention the technique requires.
Method:
Prepare the bowl and beater as described above: clean, completely dry, entirely free of fat. Combine the egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl. Beat, beginning slowly to develop the initial foam structure and then increasing speed gradually as the foam builds, until the whites reach the soft peak stage — opaque, white, with drooping peaks. At this point, begin adding the honey in a thin, continuous stream while beating continuously. This addition must be slow and controlled: adding the honey too quickly will deflate the foam significantly because the weight of the honey overwhelms the foam structure before the proteins have time to incorporate it. Add the honey over the course of two to three minutes of continuous beating, with the beater running throughout.
After all the honey has been incorporated, continue beating at medium-high speed until the foam reaches stiff peaks: the peaks stand upright without drooping, the surface of the foam is glossy, and the foam holds its shape when a small quantity is dropped from the beater onto the surface of the bowl. Honey meringue will take somewhat longer to reach stiff peaks than a sugar meringue, and the baker should be patient: the foam is developing correctly as long as it is visibly increasing in stiffness and maintaining its glossy appearance. If it begins to look dry or grainy, it is overbeaten and must be discarded.
Add the chosen flavoring at the stiff peak stage and fold in gently with two or three strokes of a broad spatula, distributing the flavoring through the foam while deflating it as little as possible.
Preheat the oven to very low — the lowest temperature your oven will maintain reliably, which in a well-calibrated oven should be between one hundred and one hundred twenty degrees on the Bravian temperature scale, or what I would describe as barely warm: you should be able to hold your hand inside the oven without discomfort. This temperature is not a baking temperature in the conventional sense. It is a drying temperature. The meringue wafers are not baked so much as they are dried: the heat is sufficient to set the protein structure around the air bubbles and drive out the moisture in the foam, but not high enough to brown or caramelize the surface.
Line a baking sheet with parchment or a clean dry cloth. Using two spoons or a pastry bag if you have one, portion the foam onto the prepared surface in rounds of approximately an inch and a half in diameter and about three-quarters of an inch in height, leaving a generous space between each. The wafers will spread slightly during drying but will not expand dramatically in the way of a chemically leavened preparation. Alternatively, spread the entire foam in a thin, even sheet on the prepared surface and score it lightly into sections before drying, breaking along the score lines after the drying is complete.
Place in the very low oven and dry for one and a half to two hours, until the wafers are completely dry throughout — one lifted from the baking surface should be completely rigid and light enough to feel almost weightless, and the bottom surface should peel cleanly away from the parchment without sticking. A wafer that sticks to the parchment is not yet dry and needs additional drying time. Do not attempt to speed the process by raising the oven temperature: higher temperature will set the surface of the wafer before the interior has dried, producing a wafer with a crisp shell and a soft, sticky center that will not keep and is unpleasant to eat.
Turn off the oven when the wafers are dry and allow them to cool in the oven with the door slightly ajar. The gradual cooling in the residual warmth of the oven is preferable to rapid cooling at room temperature, because sudden temperature change can cause the thin, dry protein structure of the wafer to crack.
Store in a dry environment in a loosely covered container. These wafers are at their best within two days of making: they remain good for up to three days in a dry environment but are susceptible to moisture absorption in humid conditions, which softens them gradually from the outside in. If the festival season coincides with a particularly damp spring, a brief return to the low oven for thirty minutes will restore the crispness that humidity has removed.
Regional flavoring variations:
Hill country — dried wild thyme and honey: Add a teaspoon of very finely crumbled dried thyme to the foam at the stiff peak stage. The combination of thyme and honey is a genuinely ancient Bravian flavor pairing, and its appearance in a meringue wafer produces a preparation that is simultaneously sweet, floral, and faintly savory — a combination that is startling the first time one encounters it and becomes deeply compelling thereafter. These wafers are served in the hill country tradition alongside aged hard cheese, which provides the salt and fat that complete the flavor combination.
Western coastal — orange and cardamom: Add the finely grated zest of one orange and half a teaspoon of ground cardamom to the foam at the stiff peak stage. This is the flavoring I use in my own bakery and the one I consider the most broadly appealing of the four regional variations, because the citrus lifts the sweetness of the honey and the cardamom provides a warmth and complexity that makes these wafers genuinely interesting over the full seven days of the feast without becoming tiresome.
Interior Amphoe — cinnamon and dried fruit: Add half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and two tablespoons of very finely minced dried apricot or raisin to the foam at the stiff peak stage. The dried fruit must be minced almost to a paste, as described in the wafer cookie recipe of Chapter 7, because visible pieces of dried fruit in a meringue foam create soft, sticky spots that prevent even drying. The cinnamon and fruit produce a wafer of distinctly warm and autumnal character despite being made in the spring, which I find a pleasing paradox.
Delta settlement — sesame and honey: Press a small quantity of sesame seeds — toasted until golden and cooled completely before use — lightly onto the surface of each portioned mound before placing in the oven. The sesame seeds will adhere to the surface of the drying foam and toast further against the gentle heat of the oven, developing a nutty character that contrasts with the sweetness of the honey meringue in a way that is simple and very effective.
Preparation without cream of tartar: Beat the egg whites without cream of tartar to the soft peak stage, then add the honey in a slow stream as described. The foam without cream of tartar will reach stiff peaks with slightly less volume and will deflate somewhat more quickly after beating is complete. Work efficiently: fold in the flavoring and portion onto the baking surface without delay after the stiff peak stage is reached. Dry in the same manner and for the same duration. The finished wafers will be marginally less crisp and slightly more tender than the cream-of-tartar version, which some tasters prefer.
Recipe 29 — Whipped-Egg Unleavened Sponge Layers
Level: 2 only
A note on this recipe: of all the preparations in this chapter, this is the one I was most reluctant to include in the book, not because it is not good — it is very good, and among the most sophisticated preparations I have developed for the Level 2 festival kitchen — but because it is the preparation that most directly challenges the expectation that Level 2 baking produces flat things. A sponge layer is not flat. It rises in the oven to a height that would look perfectly at home in an ordinary baking-year kitchen and that strikes some observers as incompatible with the unleavened season. I have addressed this concern in the chapter introduction and in Chapter 1, and I will not rehearse the argument again at length here. What I will say is that a thin, flat sponge layer is different from a thick, airy one in both technique and intent, and the preparations I describe below are specifically designed to produce thin layers rather than dramatic height — unleavened sponge in the sense of a preparation whose structure is built from egg foam rather than from chemical leavening, and whose flat or near-flat character is appropriate to the spirit of the season even as its technique belongs unmistakably to the Level 2 repertoire.
The technique for this preparation is the whole-egg foam described in the chapter introduction: whole eggs beaten vigorously with honey over gentle heat until the mixture is pale, thick, and dramatically increased in volume. This technique is the most powerful whole-egg leavening method available at Level 2 and produces a batter of great lightness into which a small quantity of flour is folded to provide structure. The result, baked in a thin layer, is a preparation with a tender, slightly open crumb and a delicate character that is entirely distinct from anything produced by the fat-based or egg-white preparations of this chapter and entirely appropriate for the sweet Level 2 festival table.
Makes two thin sponge layers of approximately ten by fourteen inches, or four smaller layers
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs, at room temperature
- ½ cup honey, warmed until very runny — the honey must be warm and fluid when it is added to the eggs, because the initial beating of cold honey with eggs produces a mixture that is difficult to aerate effectively; the warmth of the honey also contributes to the warming of the egg mixture during beating, which is the purpose of the gentle heat described below
- ½ cup soft wheat flour — a very small quantity relative to the volume of egg foam that will be produced; this is intentional and should not be increased, because the flour in this preparation is providing structure to an existing foam rather than forming the primary matrix of a conventional batter, and too much flour will weigh the foam down and produce a dense, heavy result
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- 2 tablespoons melted butter or olive oil, added at the very end of the preparation and folded in with great care — the fat contributes tenderness and flavor and prevents the finished sponge from being dry or papery, which is the characteristic fault of an egg-foam preparation that contains no fat; it must be added last and folded with minimum strokes, because the weight of the fat deflates the foam rapidly and any excess handling at this stage undoes the work of the beating
Method:
Prepare a baking pan or sheet — ten by fourteen inches is the standard size for this preparation in my bakery, producing a thin, even layer that can be cut or rolled after baking — by greasing it thoroughly and lining it with parchment pressed flat against the greased surface, then greasing the parchment as well. The double preparation is necessary because an egg-foam sponge adheres more aggressively to baking surfaces than almost any other preparation in this book, and inadequate preparation of the pan is the most common cause of catastrophic loss of a sponge layer at the moment it should be triumphantly turned out.
Set a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water — the bowl should sit above the water without touching it, because direct contact with simmering water would cook the eggs rather than warming them. Combine the eggs and warmed honey in the bowl and begin beating immediately with a wire whisk or a hand beater. The gentle warmth from the steam below the bowl softens the egg proteins and makes them more susceptible to unfolding under the mechanical action of the beating, which is why the warm-bowl technique produces a larger and more stable foam than cold beating alone. Continue beating over the warm water for six to eight minutes, until the mixture has at least tripled in volume, is pale yellow in color, and falls from the beater in a thick ribbon that holds its shape on the surface of the mixture for three to four seconds before disappearing. This ribbon test is the most reliable indicator of a fully developed whole-egg foam and should be used rather than time alone to determine when to remove the bowl from the heat.
Remove the bowl from over the water and continue beating without heat for two to three minutes more, until the bottom of the bowl has cooled to room temperature and the foam has stabilized. The continued beating after removal from the heat sets the foam structure and prevents it from deflating rapidly as it cools.
Sift the soft wheat flour and salt together over the surface of the foam. Fold in with a broad spatula using large, slow, deliberate strokes that cut through the center of the foam, sweep along the bottom of the bowl, and fold the mixture back over itself from below — the classic fold that preserves air by moving the heavier flour through the foam without compressing the bubbles against the sides of the bowl. Count the strokes: twenty to twenty-five is usually sufficient to incorporate the flour completely. If dry flour is still visible after twenty-five strokes, add three to five more, but do not exceed thirty strokes total under any circumstances. An underfolded preparation with streaks of dry flour is better than an overfolded one with deflated foam.
Drizzle the melted butter or olive oil over the surface of the folded batter and fold in with five to eight strokes — just enough to distribute the fat through the batter without significant deflation. Work quickly, because the fat deflates the foam on contact and the longer it sits on the surface before being incorporated, the more deflation it produces. Pour the finished batter into the prepared pan immediately, spreading gently with the spatula to the edges of the pan without pressing down.
Bake in a moderate oven — not the very low temperature of the meringue wafers, but a true moderate baking temperature that will set the egg protein network before the foam has fully deflated — for twelve to fifteen minutes, until the surface is golden and springs back when touched lightly in the center. The sponge is done when a finger pressed gently on the surface leaves no indentation and the edges have pulled slightly away from the sides of the pan.
Allow to cool in the pan for five minutes, then run a knife around the edges and invert onto a clean cloth. Peel away the parchment immediately while it is still warm, because parchment that is allowed to cool fully against a sponge layer will adhere more firmly and tear the surface when it is eventually removed. The inverted sponge layer should be flat, even, and slightly springy when pressed — not rigid like a cracker, not soft and yielding like a custard, but with the specific slight resilience of a correctly made egg-foam preparation.
On uses for the sponge layer: The thin sponge layer, cut into portions or left whole, can be used in the following ways at the Level 2 festival table, all of which I have served at the Stone Hearth Bakery during the feast season:
As a base for soft preparations: A piece of sponge layer placed on a plate and topped with a soft fresh cheese preparation — lightly sweetened, perhaps, with a small quantity of honey and the zest of a citrus fruit — is an elegant and satisfying sweet festival preparation that requires no further embellishment. The sponge provides a slightly firm, absorbent base for the moist topping, and the combination of the egg-rich sponge and the fresh dairy is straightforwardly good.
Rolled around a filling: The warm sponge layer, while it is still pliable in the first minutes after baking, can be rolled around a filling in the manner of the savory wraps of Chapter 6 — but in this case a sweet filling, such as a honey and fruit preparation or a thick preserve. This rolling must be done immediately while the sponge is warm and flexible, because a fully cooled sponge layer will crack rather than roll. Set a cloth on the bench, invert the warm sponge onto it, apply the filling in a thin, even layer, and use the cloth to assist the rolling, lifting it to encourage the sponge to roll over itself. The rolled preparation should be wrapped in the cloth and allowed to cool in its rolled shape, which it will maintain after the egg proteins have set fully.
Cut into portions as a sweet accompaniment: The sponge layer cut into small squares or rectangles and served alongside the meringue wafers and honey cake on a sweet festival table presents the full range of what the Level 2 egg-based sweet kitchen can produce, and this presentation — three preparations of completely different character made from the same primary ingredient — is one I find genuinely satisfying as a demonstration of what the Level 2 festival kitchen is capable of.
Recipe 30 — Almond-Flour and Egg Preparations
Level: 2 and 3
A note on this recipe: the almond-flour and egg preparation is the oldest of the three preparations in this chapter in terms of its culinary lineage — preparations of ground nuts bound with egg have been made in the Bravian festival kitchen and in other cooking traditions for centuries before any of the other preparations in this chapter were developed — and it is the preparation that most directly bridges the gap between this chapter and the grain-free Level 3 preparations of Chapter 14. It contains no wheat flour or other grain: its structure comes entirely from the combination of finely ground almonds and egg, which together produce a preparation of dense, moist, intensely nutty character that is completely different in texture and flavor from anything made with grain flour and that occupies a distinct and unrepeatable position in the festival kitchen.
The preparation is appropriate at Level 2 in the form described below, which uses lightly beaten whole eggs and, in one variation, egg whites beaten to soft peaks for a somewhat lighter result. It is also appropriate at Level 3 with the modification noted at the close of the recipe: the eggs are added without beating, which produces a denser and more compact preparation that is nonetheless very good and that requires no mechanical technique that exceeds the Level 3 standard. This is one of very few preparations in Part Three that can be adapted to Level 3 observance, and I have noted this specifically because the baker who observes at Level 3 and is looking for a sweet preparation of some sophistication will find in the Level 3 version of this recipe one of the most accomplished preparations available at that level of observance outside of Chapter 14.
Makes one preparation approximately nine by nine inches, serving 12 to 16
Ingredients:
- 2 cups finely ground blanched almonds — the grinding must be fine enough that the texture of the finished preparation is smooth and cohesive rather than grainy and crumbling; almonds ground in a mortar produce a slightly coarser result than almonds ground in a mill, and the miller’s product, where available through the port-town markets or the Amphoe grange, is preferable for this preparation. The almonds must be blanched — skins removed — because the bitter compounds concentrated in the almond skin produce an off-flavor in a preparation of this simplicity where there is no competing flavor to moderate them
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- ½ cup honey, warmed until runny
- 4 eggs — at Level 2, these are lightly beaten before incorporation; at Level 3, they are added without beating
- 3 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter
- Flavoring, from the variations below
Method:
Combine the ground almonds and salt in a large mixing bowl and stir to distribute. In a separate bowl, whisk the honey and lightly beaten eggs together until the mixture is uniform. Add the olive oil or melted butter and whisk briefly to incorporate.
Pour the egg-honey-fat mixture over the ground almonds and stir with a broad spatula until the batter is completely uniform. The mixture will be considerably wetter than a flour-based batter of comparable apparent thickness: almond flour absorbs liquid more slowly than wheat flour and the batter should be allowed to rest for five minutes after initial mixing, at which point the almonds will have absorbed some of the liquid and the batter will be somewhat thicker and more cohesive than it appeared immediately after mixing.
Grease a nine-by-nine inch baking pan generously with butter or oil and line with parchment. Pour the batter into the prepared pan: it will fill the pan to approximately three-quarters of an inch depth, which is correct. The finished preparation will be a dense, flat slab rather than a risen cake, and the pan should not be filled deeply in anticipation of significant rise, because there will be none beyond the modest expansion that heated egg proteins produce.
Bake in a moderate oven for twenty-two to twenty-eight minutes, until the surface is a deep golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out with moist but not wet crumbs adhering to it. Almond-flour preparations take somewhat longer to set at the center than grain-flour preparations of comparable thickness, because the almond proteins coagulate at different rates from wheat gluten, and the baker should use the skewer test rather than time alone to determine doneness. The surface will be fully set and slightly firm before the center is done, and this difference between surface and center doneness is normal: trust the skewer.
Allow to cool completely in the pan before cutting. The fully cooled preparation will be firm throughout and will cut cleanly into portions without crumbling. Serve in thin slices or small squares — this preparation is rich enough that a modest portion is genuinely satisfying, and it is one of the few preparations in this book that rewards restraint in serving size as strongly as it rewards generosity in preparation.
Regional flavoring variations:
Hill country — honey and dried wild thyme: Add a teaspoon of very finely crumbled dried thyme to the almond-honey-egg mixture before pouring into the pan. The thyme-almond combination is unusual and compelling, and in the hill country tradition this preparation is served alongside a strong aged cheese that makes the combination into something that sits at the boundary between sweet and savory in a way that is distinctly Bravian in character.
Western coastal — orange zest and cardamom: Add the finely grated zest of one large orange and half a teaspoon of ground cardamom to the almond-honey-egg mixture. Orange and almond is among the great natural flavor partnerships in the Bravian culinary tradition, and this preparation in its orange-cardamom version is the one I consider the finest expression of the almond-and-egg preparation in this chapter: the orange brightens the richness of the almond, the cardamom provides warmth and complexity, and the honey binds everything together with a floral sweetness that is entirely appropriate to the festival season.
Interior Amphoe — cinnamon, ginger, and dried fruit: Add half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a quarter teaspoon of ground ginger, and three tablespoons of very finely minced dried apricot to the almond mixture. Scatter additional slivered almonds over the surface of the batter before baking. The dried fruit adds a concentrated sweetness and moisture to the preparation that prevents the richness of the almond from becoming heavy, and the slivered almond surface provides a textural contrast between the crisp toasted almonds on top and the dense, moist preparation beneath.
Delta settlement — sesame and honey: Press two tablespoons of sesame seeds, toasted until golden, into the surface of the batter before baking. The sesame and almond combination is one of the newer flavor pairings in the Bravian festival repertoire, brought through the influence of the eastern communities, and it produces a preparation with a depth of nutty character — the different nut-and-seed flavors complementing rather than competing with each other — that is entirely convincing as a festival table preparation.
The lighter Level 2 variation using beaten egg whites: For a somewhat lighter preparation at Level 2, separate three of the four eggs and set the whites aside. Beat the three yolks and one whole egg with the honey until well combined. Prepare the almond base as described above using this yolk mixture. Beat the three egg whites to soft peaks — not stiff peaks, because a preparation as dense as ground almonds cannot support a stiff-peak foam without collapsing it almost entirely during folding — and fold the soft-peak whites into the almond batter in three additions, folding gently with twenty strokes per addition. The resulting batter will be noticeably lighter and more voluminous than the whole-egg version, and the finished preparation will be somewhat less dense and more open in texture. This lighter version is appropriate for the baker who finds the whole-egg preparation too rich for daily festival eating and wants a version with a somewhat less emphatic almond character.
Level 3 adaptation: Add the eggs to the almond mixture without any prior beating — crack them directly into the almond-honey-fat mixture and stir to combine. The batter will be slightly less well-emulsified than the beaten-egg version and may have a slightly rougher texture before baking, but the finished preparation is very similar in character to the Level 2 version and entirely appropriate for Level 3 observance. Bake as described above, with the same temperature, the same timing, and the same doneness test. This is one of the most naturally Level 3-compatible sweet preparations in Part Three of this book and is strongly recommended for the strictly observant household that wants a sweet preparation of genuine sophistication without the mechanical leavening concerns that most of the other preparations in this chapter present.
The Egg-White Kitchen in Perspective
The three preparations in this chapter represent the upper boundary of what the Level 2 kitchen is licensed to do by its own internal logic: mechanical technique applied with full deliberateness to produce lift through the incorporation and stabilization of air in egg-white proteins. They are the preparations that most clearly demonstrate that the Level 2 standard, properly understood, is not a slightly impoverished version of Level 1 but a distinct baking tradition with its own characteristic methods and its own characteristic range of results — results that are not available at Level 1 because they depend on the removal of chemical leavening to make their contribution legible, and not available at Level 3 because they depend on mechanical technique that the stricter standard does not permit.
This distinctiveness is, in my view, the most important thing to understand about Part Three as a whole, and this chapter in particular brings it into focus more clearly than any other. The meringue wafer is not a failed chemically leavened cracker. The sponge layer is not a risen yeasted cake inadequately executed. The almond-flour preparation is not a substitution for something that could be better made by other means. They are what they are: preparations whose existence and character depend on the specific combination of constraints and permissions that define the Level 2 festival kitchen, and that could not exist in quite the same form under any other set of baking conditions.
My student from the port-town family, who made her egg-white wafers with such quiet competence and such complete absence of drama, understood this instinctively. The preparations of the Level 2 festival kitchen were for her simply the preparations of the Level 2 festival kitchen — not a set of restrictions to work around but a tradition to inhabit, and she inhabited it with the ease of someone who has never felt the need to apologize for where she lives.
I have learned to inhabit it the same way. The wafers are on the festival table every year now, next to the honey cake and alongside the almond preparation that has become, in the years since I first made it, one of the preparations I look forward to most during the feast season. They are good things. They belong there. And they are there because the Level 2 kitchen, with its particular combination of constraints and freedoms, is the kind of kitchen that produces them, and no other kind does.
That is enough reason to be glad of the standard.
Part Four: Level 3 Recipes — No Biological, Chemical, or Mechanical Leavening begins on the following page.
