Sampita

Sampita (pronounced sham-pee-tah) is a popular cake in Yugoslavian cuisine. Kemal said his mother used to make it, and it was his favorite cake. He hasn’t had it since he came to the United States so I wanted to make it for him. It was easy to make and it certainly is delicious.

I will pass along the recipe to you, but please do keep in mind that this Yugoslavian cake is made with raw egg whites.

Disclaimer: There is a risk of Salmonella food poisoning when consuming raw eggs or undercooked eggs, and that risk may be higher in children, the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, or nursing mothers. If you are concerned about using raw egg products because of the risk of Salmonella poisoning, please do not prepare this cake (or any other recipe) with raw eggs. You can use meringue powder or dried egg white powder instead.

Sampita (Recipe Source: Coolinarika.com)

Cake Ingredients:

• 10 egg yolks
• 10 tbsp. sugar
• 1 pkg. vanilla sugar (If you don’t have vanilla sugar, just add a tbsp. of vanilla and an extra tbsp. of sugar)
• 5 tbsp. milk
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 8 tbsp. flour
• a little baking powder (I used 2 tsp.)

Cream Ingredients:

• 10 egg whites (to avoid any risk of Salmonella food poisoning, you can use meringue powder or dried egg white powder)
  
• pinch of salt
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 pkg. vanilla sugar (you can substitute with a tbsp. of vanilla if you don’t have vanilla sugar on hand)
• water (small amount)

Step One: Making the Cake:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Separate your eggs, putting your egg yolks in a large mixing bowl.
3. Put your egg whites aside in a glass or stainless steel bowl and let them come to room temperature for about 20 minutes (the egg whites will foam higher if they’re not extremely cold)
4. With an electric mixer, mix the egg yolks and both sugars together.
5. Add the milk and oil to the egg yolks and sugar, mixing together on a very low speed.
6. Mix the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl.
7. Add the flour and baking powder, one spoon at a time to the eggs/sugar/milk/oil mixture, mixing on a slow speed.
8. Oil and flour your baking pan. I used a 10-inch springform pan.
9. Pour the batter in your springform pan and bake it until it’s golden brown.

Step Two: Making the Cream Topping

1. Beat the egg whites, along with the pinch of salt, until the egg whites are firm.
2. When that’s done, set your egg whites aside and make a syrupy mixture (sugar and water) that you’ll add to the egg whites. If you have someone to help you, you can beat the egg whites while your assistant makes the syrupy mixture.
3. Put in a small sauce pan the 4 cups of sugar and a little water…barely enough to cover the sugar. Cook that until the sugar dissolves (about 5-6 minutes). It should the consistency of syrup when it’s warm.
4. Take your hot sugar/water mixture that you just made and slowly pour a little of it in your beaten egg whites.
5. Beat the egg whites and sugar water.
6. While you’re continuing to beat the mixture, add more of the syrupy mixture to the egg whites, beating constantly. If you have someone to help you, you can ask your assistant to the pour the syrupy mixture into the egg whites while you beat.
7. After you’ve added all the sugar/water mixture to the egg whites, keep beating the egg white cream until it becomes cooler…closer to room temperature.
8. You will know you’re done beating when you can take a spoon of the egg white cream, turn it upside down, and it doesn’t fall off the spoon or drip off the spoon.
9. When the cream is done, pour it over the cooled cake and spread it out evenly over the cake.
10. Refrigerate for 8 to 24 hours. The cake will be very moist.
11. Optional Step: You can decorate the top of the cake with sugar sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, or cinnamon. We decorated the top of ours with a European drinking chocolate…Moroccan Spice.

Here’s a picture of the cake we made after it sat in the refrigerator for about 13 hours. Note: The recipe will make two cakes like this. We actually cut the recipe in half because we only need a small cake for the two of us. This cake is actually way too big for the two of us. I have no idea how we’re going to eat it all! I think we will try to freeze part of it so we can enjoy the rest of the cake in a week or two.

As far as texture is concerned, it’s a light and airy cake that very moist. It’s sweet, but I don’t find it heavy on my stomach. Of course, I didn’t eat a lot of it at once. Now that’s not to say I didn’t want to…I had to resist the temptation to eat too much of it. It’s very delicious, and I’m certainly looking forward to making it again.