FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
NAPOLITAIN
Excerpted and Adapted from Escoffier, A. and P.H. Gilbert. Edited by Charlotte Turgeon and Nina Froud. 1961. The World Authority. Larousse Gastronomique. The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine & Cookery.
are large cakes which, like Breton cakes, mille-feuilles and croquembouche, were once used to decorate elaborate buffets.
In former times it was customary to place at each end of a table set for a large dinner-party either an imposing decorated pastry or a heap of crayfish or other shellfish. This practice has now been abandoned; and although napolitiains are still made, they are now usually small.
The name of this cake suggests that it was created in Naples, but was this, in fact, the case? Or must we, as would seem more probable, ascribe its invention to Careme, who, as is generally known, at the time when he was making great set pieces, invented a certain number of large and magnificent pastries to which he himself gave the names which they bear today? It is a question to which no certain answer can be given.
In former times, napolitain cakes were decorated with motifs in almond paste or flaky pastry baked without browning.
