Sunday Brunch

The night before our former exchange student and his girlfriend went back to Italy, they made us what she called a cake. We would call it a torte. It was delicious and quite easy to make. So I thought I would share it with you. Since I don't know the exact name, I will call it the
Italian Torte 
You will need;
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 to 2 cups whole wheat flour
1 jar of your favorite jam (not jelly)

Begin by combining the butter and sugar. Add egg and mix well..

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Begin with a cup and 1/2 of flour. Add this to the egg, butter and sugar mixture. The dough should be stiff, but still pliable so add more flour if needed. Once the dough is of a good consistency, wrap it in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes.

While you are waiting on the dough to chill, butter a 9" baking pan.

Once buttered, flour the pan. 

Of course having the one you love to help makes all the difference.

Once the dough has chilled, flour a piece of wax paper and roll the dough out. As you can see in the picture below, it should be fairly thin.

Place the bottom of your spring form pan over the dough. Leave a good 1/2" to 3/4" of dough extending from the edge.

Flip the dough over and crimp the dough so the it forms a ridge and is not hanging over the edge.

Place in pan. Prick the dough as you see below.

Take your favorite jam and pour it in a bowl and stir to loosen it up a bit.

Now pour the jam over the dough. Spread to the edge, but not over the edge.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for approximately 25 minutes. Do not allow the dough to get too brown.

Chiara and Giacomo used the rest of the dough to decorate the torte. Once they started the process of decorating, I was banned from the kitchen. Once the torte was out of the oven, I was allowed to return and this is what I saw. Now, there is a story behind this. When Giacomo was a teenager, he had many questions that were not always questions that I wanted to answer. He would begin with, "Rhonda, I have a question." With that, my husband would quickly get up and leave the room, leaving me to deal with whatever the question happened to be. Great. I learned to tell him that I did not want to hear the question. He would usually insist and I would be forced to answer. Funny, those memories are now some of my sweetest. Isn't it funny how time has a way of doing that?

So, what was their question? Actually, they had two. The first, when are we coming to Italy? That was an easy one. I had promised Giacomo that when he earns his doctorate, we'll come. He's about half way there. I think that is definitely worth celebrating. The second question, when could they come back? I told them that I would rather they never leave.