Old School Cake Secrets?

October 26, 2012 12:50 PM

Last night I grated hard boiled eggs into a shortcake cake as per a super old family recipe. Why?

So, according to a magnificently delicious very old (over 200 yr old) family recipe for an apple cake, you create the short bread layers of almond meal, butter, sugar and flour, and add 1 beaten whole egg, and 4 hard boiled eggs pressed through a sieve. You then layer these shortbreads with homemade apple butter (10 lbs apples boiled into jam over a full day of cooking- no gelatin cheating allowed).

Despite googling, and much perusing of cookbooks, I have not seen this technique anywhere. The grated egg and almond meal in the shortbread makes for a very very delicate cake layer, that is basically cemented in place with apple butter. The cake is frosted with a simple butter-lemon-confectioners sugar mix, that is more like a glaze or shell than a classic buttercream frosting. The cake keeps wonderfully, and is eaten in thin slivers- otherwise it's too rich.

Does anyone have any ideas as to where this technique comes from or has ever heard of this?


If it's relevant, this recipe comes from family that is from Eastern Europe, and most other family recipes of this vintage are more similar to Austrian/German cooking than traditional Ukrainian food.

posted by larthegreat to food & drink (8 answers total)

This is a thing.

The hard boiled yolks add richness but no water, which combined with flour makes undesirable chewiness. You get rich, crisp cookies.
posted by purpleclover at 12:57 PM on October 26, 2012 [15 favorites]

heh. i was just coming to post the exact same thing. *shakes ineffectual fist at purpleclover*
posted by koroshiya at 12:58 PM on October 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Er, cake.

one edit window is not enough for me.
posted by purpleclover at 1:00 PM on October 26, 2012

Here is a brief discussion in Cook's Illustrated of how hard boiled egg yolks change the texture of butter cookies, which might be relevant.
posted by aimedwander at 1:33 PM on October 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

[Folks, as tempting as it is (and it is) this is not the place to nag the OP for recipes. ]
posted by restless_nomad at 1:36 PM on October 26, 2012

That was quick! Thanks!

If you want the recipe memail me. It is very labor intensive.
posted by larthegreat at 1:50 PM on October 26, 2012 [3 favorites]

Even more detail from Joe Pastry (his blog is great for science-of-baking questions like this).
posted by anaelith at 4:18 PM on October 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Another old cake recipe with hard boiled eggs: Berlinerkranser.
posted by iviken at 12:12 PM on October 28, 2012