Back in the 70’s and 80’s, this cake of shortbread bottom, instant-coffee-flavored cream and meringue on top was the fanciest cake in the repertoire of any fashionable Israeli home cook. A young cookbook author, Hannah Shaulov, included the recipe in her first cookbook in 1974, and the rest is history. Hanna became one of the most famous cookbook authors in Israel for the next dozens of years, but this is still one of her most memorable recipes.
My mother kept on making the cake for every occasion through the 90’s, and to be honest, to these days this is one of our favorites.
12
servings30
minutes1
hour30
minutes2
hoursThe cake is easy and relatively quick to make, but it’s important to prepare it a full 24 hours before you serve, enough time for the cake to chill, for the crust to get a little wet (in a good way!) from the cream, for the cream and meringue to fuse into one another. In short, for the magic to happen.
INGREDIENTS
- For the meringue
4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
- For the crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
4 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
8 tablespoons cold butter
2 large egg yolks
1-2 tablespoons cold water
- For the cream
2 cups heavy cream, very cold
4 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons instant coffee or 3 tablespoons cold strong coffee
- for the glaze
1½ tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa
1½ tablespoon milk
½ tablespoon butter
DIRECTIONS
- Oven to 250 F degrees. Draw a 12½ ” x 8½” rectangle on a parchment paper using a pencil, flip the paper so the pencil parks are at the bottom and line a baking sheet with it.
- In a stand mixer whip egg white until airy and fluffy. Slowly add the sugar in a steady stream and whip to stiff peaks, about 8 minutes. Use a spatula to spread the egg whites inside the lines of the drawn rectangle and bake until firm to touch, about 1 – 1½ hours. Transfer to a cooling wrack. When meringue is completely cold, flip it onto 2 layers of kitchen towels (to prevent it from breaking. It will break either way, though đŸ˜‰ and remove the parchment paper. Set aside.
- Increase oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9″ x 13″ pan.
- To make the crust, put flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bowl of a food processor and mix. Cut butter to 8 pieces and add to the bowl and pulse to get crumbs. Add egg yolks and mix until you get a dough. You can add ups to 2 tablespoon of water and mix until dough forms into a ball in the food processor.
- Transfer the dough to the greased pan and spread it until you cover the bottom. Bake for 10 minutes and cool on a cooling wrack.
- To make the cream, whip heavy cream in a mixer fitted with the balloon whisk. Add coffee and sugar and continue to whip to soft peaks (do not over whip.) Spread whipped cream on top of the baked and cooled crust.
- Very carefully flip the meringue on top of the whipped cream, using the towels it is sitting on. It may crack or break a little, and that’s fine.
- Make a simple glazing by reheating glazing ingredients in the microwave for 15 seconds at a time until smooth. Use a teaspoon to drizzle from the glaze in a random circular motion over the meringue.
- Lightly cover the cake with aluminum foil and cill in the fridge for 24 hours before serving. The cake will keep in the fridge top to 5 days.
