Toucinho do céu: heavenly bacon

Ingredients

• 300 g whole blanched almonds, blanched and ground immediately before use
• 300 g caster sugar
• 100 ml water
• 8 egg yolks, from large eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 60 g pork lard, or unsalted butter; lard is the original
• To finish
• 1 tbsp icing sugar, applied at service only
• To prepare the tin
• 1 tsp lard or butter, for greasing
• 1 sheet baking parchment

Method

1. 1
   Heat the oven to 170 °C. Grease a 22 cm round cake tin with lard or butter, line the base and sides with parchment, and grease the parchment. The lining must be thorough — the cake sticks badly to an unlined surface.
2. 2
   If the almonds are not yet blanched, drop them into boiling water for 60 seconds, drain, slip off the skins, and spread on a cloth to dry briefly. Transfer to a food processor and grind to a fine, slightly damp meal. The meal should smell fresh and milky, not flat.
3. 3
   Combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a full boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then cease stirring and cook until the syrup reaches a thread stage — a drop pressed between thumb and forefinger draws a fine thread. Remove from the heat immediately.
4. 4
   Add the lard or butter to the hot syrup and stir until it melts and emulsifies into the mixture. The fat must be incorporated while the syrup is still hot — this is where the dish lives or dies; a cooled syrup will not emulsify the fat and the texture of the finished cake will be greasy and uneven.
5. 5
   Stir the ground almonds into the hot syrup-and-fat mixture. Allow to cool until the mixture is warm but no longer hot — it should be comfortable to hold a hand near without drawing back.
6. 6
   Beat the egg yolks lightly and stir them into the almond mixture. Beat the egg whites to soft peaks — they should hold a gentle curve at the tip — and fold them in. Use restraint: too much egg white produces a firm, cakey texture that loses the characteristic density.
7. 7
   Pour the batter into the prepared tin and transfer to the oven. Bake for 25–30 minutes at 170 °C. The cake is done when the surface is golden and slightly crisped and the centre barely trembles when the oven door is opened — it should not be still liquid, nor fully rigid.
8. 8
   Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin before unmoulding. The cake may be held overnight — the almond oils redistribute and the flavour deepens. Dust with icing sugar only at the moment of service, or it will dissolve into the surface.