As a kid I don’t recall many Sundays without a large cocoa
buttercream filled piskóta. It was such a fixture at our house on Sundays, when
I got older I rarely touched it. I looked forward to Thursdays when Nagymama
made strudel, túrós or hájas tészta. It was not easy to break into the weekly
menu of the Vári family. During one of my visits, I made a flat bed apple pie
for Sunday. I thought someone in the family would surely have a heart attack. True
to form, there was a lot of whining. In the end, they polished it all off. But it wasn’t just my family, back in the
days piskóta was the quintessential cake in Hungary
Piskóta is a lean cake; based on three basic ingredients,
eggs, sugar and flour. Erroneously it is sometimes called sponge or genoise. In fact it is a foam cake. The leavening agent is the beaten eggs. Yes, you can make it with sifted
all-purpose flour. But for the novice I would suggest cake and pastry flour or
the addition of a little bit of baking powder.
We were nearing the end of a jar of Nutella, so I swirled it
around in the piskóta batter. It made a great dessert with whipped cream. Easy
peasy wonderful.
NUTELLA PISKOTA
5 egg whites
5 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup cake flour
1/2 cup Nutella
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl beat the egg yolks and the sugar until thick and lemon colored.
- Stir the flour into the yolk mixture.
- Gently incorporate the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture.
- Line a large, rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Pour the batter onto the prepared cookie sheet.
- Gently smooth out the top.
- Using a large spoon, drop the Nutella at intervals onto the cake batter.
- Swirl it around with a doll knife.
- Bake it in the preheated oven until the middle springs back.
- Remove from the oven and let the cake cool down to room temperature.
- Cut into serving sized squares with a sharp knife.
- Lightly drizzle with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream.
