yes, a cake that requires 30 egg yolks, yet only 6 egg whites. i used to hate recipes that leave you with such a great amount of leftover yolk/whites, but i've since learnt that it's not quite the same when you spitefully dump the entire egg into the recipe.
we halved the recipe, for this lapis surabaya, (i call it indonesian layer cake) not wanting to invest 30 yolks in something that we weren't sure would turn out. it would have been a great disappointment, and the souring of many a childhood memory, such as devouring the chocolate layer and refusing to eat the rest, to my mother's annoyance.
Ingredients:250g flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
500g butter
250g sugar
1 1/2 tbsp rum
1/2 tsp salt
6 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
30 egg yolks
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp melted chocolate
3 tsp orange zest
some jam or butter cream
Method:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Cream butter, half of sugar, rum and salt till light and creamy
Beat egg whites, remaining sugar and cream of tartar till pale coloured. Add egg yolks, beat again till thickened and add in the butter mixture.
Fold in the flour and baking powder. Portion out 1/3 of the batter, and add to it cocoa powder and melted chocolate. Bake for 30 minutes.
Add orange zest to the remaining batter and bake for 40 minutes. Cut into 2 layers and spread with jam. Sandwich the chocolate layer in between.
Oh, we didn't have jam, but we did have strawberries. So I boiled the strawberries with 1 tbsp of sugar, and we got a pretty decent "jam".
This cake really needs to cool thoroughly before its flavours peak. Ideally leave it overnight so that the layers can settle into one another firmly. Picking at it while still warm will leave you with the impression that this is an oily, too-sweet pound cake. Leave it for a few hours more and the texture changes...somehow it'll tastes better; moist rather than oily, flavourful rather than too sweet.
