As the (real) story goes, back in 1920 a pastry chef named Carmine di Fiore of Italy was preparing an almond cake to serve to three American gangsters who had come to Capri, and probably in his haste, he forgot to add flour.
But to his pleasant surprise, the cake turned out to be a delicious one. And since then this unique delicacy took the name Torta Caprese which gained an unparalleled recognition both in the island as well as the entire Amalfi Coast.
Personally I had not heard about this cake till recently. We were attending a curated wine dinner at Bangalore a few days back, where in the last course, dessert cake was served with a glass of Port Wine. I took it to be a regular chocolate pastry cake which, not overtly sweet, paired very nicely with the accompanying Port wine. To my oenological mind this ticked the right box, since in a dessert – wine pairing, the wine should be sweeter than the dessert, which was true in this case.
However, it was much later, when I wanted to share a photograph of this cake (with wine) in a blogpost, that the realisation dawned. As I went back to the printed menu of the wine dinner, I noticed that the name of the cake was Torta Caprese. It was certainly not the chocolate cake which I had imagined it to be earlier.
With my researcher now fully activated, I combed the online search engines till I landed upon the story of this flourless cake, one which I have shared at start of this post.
Coming back to wine served that day, it was the Warre’s Port about which I wrote in another post which you can read here.
Interesting still is the fact that my wife has been making a similar almond cake without the use of flour since so many years. Finally it has a name now, as well as a story.
I’ll bet your wife would have been thrilled if you thought she invented this cake. It would have been a golden moment for you! 🤭🤭🤭😂
The right wine with chocolate cake is always a winner!