Snow cake – a blast from the past

So on my baking trip down memory lane I decided to bake a ‘Snow cake’. This is one of my favourite cakes as well as my daughters favourite. This cake is light and crumbly, almost dry, it is very buttery and melts in the mouth, imagine it as being the cake version of a Viennese whirl. I was told that this cake was traditionally served on New Years Eve with a glass of port although we always had something more substantial to offer Hogmanay revelers.

Recipe ingredients :

8 oz potato flour

2 oz cornflour

1 oz plain flour

7 oz sugar

6 oz butter

2 large eggs

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

I’ve always loved baking but I don’t do much these days, I’d be as big as a house if I baked, but we all deserve a treat now and again, right?  This recipe calls for the 3 flours ( potato flour, sometimes called potato starch, cornflour and plain flour) to be sifted together with baking powder. I didn’t have plain flour so I added self raising, it’s only an ounce so I couldn’t see it making a great deal of difference. And I got some potato flour at the health shop.

The butter is creamed with the sugar, I used my electric mixer and managed to splat it everywhere, up the wall, floor, bench and down my sleeve, but hey even on the ‘Great British Bake Off’ these things happen. Then I had the bright idea of microwaving the mixture to soften it but I managed to melt it instead.

This turned out to be helpful in the next stage of the recipe, folding in the egg yolks and flour, the recipe states in capitals DO NOT ADD ANY EXTRA LIQUIDS .

Then the egg whites are whisked to soft peaks and folded in, this is when I fantasize about owning a Kitchen Maid mixer.

So the cake is read to go into  lined tin and into the oven, I had to convert F to C and baked it at 130C for 1 hour 25 mins. Also I should say the smell through the house is divine.

And here is the finished cake, I own up to cutting off the end as soon as it cooled, this cake is pale, light, buttery, slightly dry but it melts in the mouth. As a girl when I thought of Marie Antoinette saying “Let them eat cake” I always thought of it being snow cake 🙂

I’m going to try making a wheat free version for my friend, you wouldn’t miss an oz of flour if it was replaced with cornflour I’m sure.

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