ABSTRACT
This famous torte, even an idiot like me can make. Raw walnuts: take eight ounces, or it might be six or ten, And measure out by weight the same amount of sugar; then You’re on your way to make Vienna’s “Second Walnut Cake.” Next, in your blender grind the nuts the way you’d make a shake, And in proportion separate nine eggs, or five, or seven. Be sure to stay away from baking powder, salt, or leaven, But beat the egg whites thoroughly until they’re stiff and quake. Mix yolks with sugar, beat a bit, and then let the nuts partake. The whites are added gently to the batter. And, if handy, Put in a tablespoon or cap of decent rum or brandy. Now pour into your buttered, bread-crumbed springform, and just bake. Three-fifty F. In fifty minutes test—now stay awake! It’s better slightly underdone than dry—be no one’s fool! Add apricot preserves with a dash of rum on top, when cool; For icing, sweetened Schlag is best—that’s never a mistake. *From a book of 1936, the author: Alice Urbach. A book for sure most comprehensive, of the ones I’ve seen, Its title, though, is unpretentious: “So kocht man in Wien.” (Did Urbach, asked her music love, say, “selbstverständlich nur Bach”?) That book has music: dishes named for Schubert, Liszt, and Mahler, And naturally some for Strausses, father, son, and cousin, But most for Amadeus, wow, I bet there are a dozen. All sweet, no savories; and for each I’d gladly pay top dollar.
