A walnutty Fourth of July

Mom cooked the main course on the Fourth of July (Potato Pasta) while I broke out a one-pound bag of walnut halves to use for both appetizer and dessert. For the starter, I made the Rosemary Walnuts from More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin. They were very good (a bit too salty), but I think we like The Union Square Café’s Bar Nuts better, though I may tweak that recipe a little based on the Rosemary Walnuts.

For dessert, I made this cake, which appears in not one, but two of my nine essential cookbooks. I first read about it in Cooking for Mr. Latte, in which Amanda Hesser says it is a "great dinner party cake" because "it's well behaved. There's no worry that it will fall apart or get sloppy when you're cutting it." Hesser adapted it just slightly from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. Hesser and Hazan both say you should make it a day ahead because the flavor improves over 24 hours. Of course, we couldn't wait that long, and it tasted great to us anyway.

Walnut Cake

Adapted from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (1992) by Marcella Hazan and Amanda Hesser in The New York Times

I made this gluten free by substituting a gluten-free flour blend (83 grams brown rice flour + 28 grams potato starch + 14 grams tapioca starch) and ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum for the all-purpose flour.

225 grams (½ pound) walnuts (whole, halves, or pieces)
7 tablespoons (100 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened, plus some for the pan
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour (see note), plus some for the pan
⅔ cup (132 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg (~57 grams in the shell)
2 tablespoons rum
grated zest of 1 lemon
1½ teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt

    1. Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and heat to 325 degrees. Spread the walnuts on a 13-by-9-inch baking sheet, and bake until the nuts are fragrant and just toasted, about 5 minutes. Watch carefully. Set the walnuts aside to cool completely.
    2. Turn the oven up to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-inch springform pan.
    3. When the walnuts are cool, place them in a food processor fitted with the steel blade along with 1 tablespoon of the sugar. Process to fine granules, but not to a powder, about 12 one-second pulses (the time will vary depending on whether you started with whole walnuts or halves or pieces). Scrape into a large bowl.
    4. Place the butter and the remaining sugar in the processor, and process until creamy. Add the egg, rum, lemon zest, baking powder, and salt, and process briefly till the mixture is uniform, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
    5. Scrape the butter mixture into the bowl with the ground walnuts. Using a spatula, fold everything together until uniformly combined.
    6. Sift the flour over the other ingredients, and fold together with the spatula to form an evenly blended batter. Scrape the stiff batter into the pan, leveling it off with the spatula.
    7. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. The recipe says 45 minutes, and 10 more if it's not done, but mine was already overdone at 40 minutes, so start testing after about 35 minutes.
    8. Set the pan on a wire rack, and remove the sides of the springform. When the cake is lukewarm, transfer it off the pan bottom onto the rack to cool completely. The cake is best served the next day, when its flavor has fully developed. Serve as is or with lightly sweetened whipped cream. Makes 8 servings.