Schiaciatta alla Fiorentina - A Florentine-Style Cake

The other night, I prepared a Tuscan dinner with Florentine focus for wonderful family visitors and local family members. I decided to do a double dessert - Strawberry Semifreddo, which I've mentioned in earlier postings, and Schiaciatte alla Fiorentina - Florentine-style Schiaciatta. I thought the two worked very well together.

Schiaciatta is a dessert bread/cake. It used to be served at Carnival time, but is now served year round. ("Schiaciatta" is pronounced - "Ski ah chat tah." "Sch" in standard Italian is pronounced like the "sch" in "school," not the "sh" in "shine.")

The recipe I chose was from a web site called, "Under the Tuscan Gun." - (http://underthetuscangun.com/food/desserts/12-schiacciata-alla-fiorentina/). In addition to the recipe, the couple who created the web site have also made a video of how to prepare this recipe. I recommend watching the video before baking the cake.

The recipe is pretty straight forward and easy. I have made it twice and it turned out fine both times. When serving the bread you can use a variety of toppings. The traditional way is with powdered sugar. Alternatively, we tried strawberry jam. We also topped it with whipped cream.

I plan to try other recipes from this web site.

Recipe

Ingredients

- 2 1/2 cups of flour (all purpose, unbleached)
- 1 cup of sugar
- 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil
- 7 tablespoons of warm whole milk
- 3 eggs
- the juice and zest of an orange (I used a blood orange.)
- 1 1/2 tablespoons of baking powder
- confectioner's sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 360⁰ Butter well an 8&1/2 by 12 inch baking pan. I used a ceramic dish. If you use a ceramic dish rather than metal, reduce the cooking temperature by 25⁰.

2. Separate the yolk and egg whites.

3. Scrape the orange zest and squeeze the orange juice into a large bowl.

4. Place the egg yolks and all remaining ingredients except the egg whites into the bowl with the orange zest and juice.

5. Using a blender, whip the egg whites until the become a thick foam and fluff up. Then add them into the bowl. Work the mix very well, making sure there are no chunks of flour remaining.

6. Pour the mix into the buttered pan and bake it uncovered in the oven for 30-35 minutes. (Our oven took 30 minutes.) At 30 minutes, test the cake by inserting a toothpick. If it comes out clean and dry, the baking is complete. If not, continue cooking for another 5 minutes and test again.

7. After removing the cake from the oven, let it cool for half an hour. After the cake cooled, I turned the cooking dish over and put the cake into a serving dish. You can now top the cake and serve it. Instead of putting the toppings on myself, I put powdered sugar, whipped cream, and jam on the table, and let our guests apply their preferred topping.