Beyond Cheesecake: Foods of Shavuot

Dairy on Shavuot

Shavuot in the Ashkenazi world is characterised by the custom of eating dairy foods: myriad forms of cheesecake, blintzes; cheese kreplach; calsones; bourekas and more.^[1] The earliest record I could find of eating dairy on Shavuot appears in the the Maʿaseh Rokeah of R. Elazar of Worms, (ca. 1176–1238), and refers to a practice of his father’s uncle, R. Menachem bar Jacob:

^{מעשה רוקח} אבא מרי ראה שדודו רבי' מנחם שביום טוב של עצרת שאכל גבינה לפני בשר ועשה קינוח הפה בטבול פת ביין שאכל ולא שהה בינתיים.^[2]

^{Ma’aseh Rokeah} My father, my master, said of his uncle, R. Menachem, that on the festival of Shavuot, he would eat cheese before meat, and he would clean his mouth by eating bread dipped in wine, and he did not wait any time in between.

R. Elazar also mentions baking cheese-filled muliyyata on Shavuot in his Derashah LePesach (“Passover Sermon”), in the context of a discussion of the laws of cooking on the festivals (p. 110):

^{דרשה לפסח} נראה לי אלעזר הקטן אדם שרוצה לאפות, כגון מצות בליל פסח או מליתא של גבינה בעצרת, מותר לא לגרוף את הגחלים חוצה וגם את האפר...^[3]

^{Derasha LePesach} It appears to me, Elazar the small, that someone who wishes to bake [on a festival day], such as matzot on the night of Pesach or cheese pie (muliyyata) on Shavuot, may scrape the coals out and also the ashes…

Muliyyata, literally something filled, is a pie; made with sheets of dough above and below the filling, just as the manna that the Israelites gathered to eat in the wilderness had a layer of dew above and below it. It is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud as a food stuffed with meat, but by the sixteenth century could refer to a sort of pie or Floden/Fladen filled with meat, fish or cheese. Other Ashkenazi rabbinical sources mention muliyyata, and explain it as Floden, specifically when it refers to a milk food.^[4]

Why Dairy?

Many reasons have been offered to explain this custom. Indeed, the contemporary scholar, R. Moshe Dinin, has collected nearly one hundred and fifty of them. ^[5] This by itself should make us suspect that these “reasons” have been provided post factum. However, we can still speculate on the original or earliest reason, and I suggest following up on the explanation provided by Mordechai Yehudah Leib Zaks (1906–1963), that it is meant to express gratitude for the gift of the “land of milk and honey.”^[6] This fits with Shavuot’s original theme.

Bikkurim: First Fruits of the Harvest

While the rabbis refer to Shavuot as Zeman Matan Toratenu, “the Time of the Giving of our Torah,” the Torah itself never makes this connection.^[7] Rather, Shavuot is literally “the Festival of Weeks,” (=Shavuot), held seven weeks after Passover. It is a harvest festival, Chag HaAssif. And it is also Chag HaBikkurim, the Festival of First Fruits, when Israelites were to bring an offering of the first produce (Deut 26:1–4).^[8]

As part of this offering, each participant made a declaration before the priest^[9] that described how their ancestors wandered into Egypt, were persecuted there, and how God brought them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land (Deut 26:5–10).^[10] The text is still familiar to us today from the Passover Haggadah. But the passage quoted in the Haggadah stops before the mention of the Land “flowing with milk and honey.”

^{דברים כו:ט} וַיְבִאֵנוּ אֶל הַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה וַיִּתֶּן לָנוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ. ^כו:י וְעַתָּה הִנֵּה הֵבֵאתִי אֶת רֵאשִׁית פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר נָתַתָּה לִּי יְ־הוָה...

^{Deut 26:9} And He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. ^26:10 And now, look, I have brought the first yield of the fruit of the soil that You gave me, God…

The omission of the continuation of the passage from the Haggadah may have obscured the origin of the custom of eating dairy foods on the festival of First Fruits.

With the destruction of the First Temple, and later the Second, with the concomitant dispersal of many Jews, the agricultural aspects of Shavuot became irrelevant for many, and the later identification of this day with commemorating the Sinai revelation became paramount.

Eating Dairy Foods in the Middle Ages: The First Records

In line with R. Elazar of Worms, but not explicitly connecting the eating of milk and honey to Shavuot, R. Jacob Anatoli (ca. 1194–1286) connects this milk and honey imagery to the Torah:

^{מלמד התלמידים, במדבר} ואתם בני ידעתם כי התורה נמשלה לדבש וחלב כאמרו (שיר השירים ד:יא) "דבש וחלב תחת לשונך וריח שלמותיך כריח לבנון."

^{Malmad HaTalmidim, Bemidbar} And you my sons know that the Torah is compared to honey and to milk, as they said (Song 4:11, Alter trans.): “Nectar your lips drip, bride, honey and milk are under your tongue, and the scent of your robes like Lebanon’s scent.”^[11]

Indeed, in addition to eating dairy on Shavuot, we can see from other early Ashkenazi sources, that there was also a custom for children to eat honey on Shavuot.

Teaching Children Torah with Honey on Shavuot

As well as noting the custom of eating dairy on Shavuot, R. Elazar of Worms also describes a custom of feeding children honey on Shavuot when they first began to learn Torah (although here he makes no mention of eating dairy on this festival). The teacher was to provide slates with the alphabet and certain biblical verses on them, which he read together with the children:

^{הרוקח רצו} ונותן על הלוח מעט דבש ולוחך הנער הדבש שעל האותיות בלשונו.

^{Rokeah §296} And he is to place on the board a little bit of honey, and the child licks the honey on the letters with his tongue.

The child was then given honey cake to eat:

^{הרוקח רצו} ואחר כך מביאין העוגה שנילושה בדבש וכתוב עליה (ישעיה נ:ד–ה) "ה' אלהים נתן לי לשון לימודים לדעת לעות את יעף דבר יעיר בבקר בבקר יעיר לי אזן לשמע כלימודים ה' אלהים פתח לי אזן ואנכי לא מריתי ואחור לא נסוגותי." וקורא הרב כל תיבה של אלו פסוקים והנער אחריו.

^{Rokeah §296} Afterwards, they bring a cake that was kneaded in honey, and written upon it is (Isa 50:4–5; Alter trans.): “The Master, the LORD, has given me a skilled tongue, knowing how to proffer a word to the weary. Morning after morning he rouses my ear to listen as do the disciples. The Master, the LORD, has opened my ear, for I, I did not rebel, nor did I fall away.” The rabbi reads each word of these verses, and the child [recites] after him.

ואחר כך מביאין ביצה מבושלת וקלופה הקליפה ממנה וכתוב עליה (יחזקאל ג:ג): "ויאמר אלי בן אדם בטנך תאכל ומעיך תמלא את המגילה הזאת אשר אני נותן אליך ואוכלה ותהי בפי כדבש למתוק." וקורא הרב כל תיבה והנער אחריו

Afterwards, they bring a hard-boiled egg with the shell removed, and upon it is written (Ezek 3:3; Alter trans.): “And He said to me: ‘Man, your belly you shall feed and your innards you shall fill with this scroll that I give you.’ And I ate, and it became sweet as honey in my mouth.” I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey to me.” The rabbi reads each word, and the child recites after him.

ומאכילין לנער העוגה והביצה כי טוב הוא לפתיחת הלב.

And they feed the child the cake and the egg, since this is good for opening up the heart.

While R. Elazar cites this practice as a Shavuot ritual, Mahzor Vitri (§508; 11^th century France) has a version of this ritual for whenever a father brings his son for his first Torah study. Ivan Marcus has suggested that this ceremony was subsequently replaced by bar mitzvah, so that the honey migrated to Rosh Hashanah, leaving only the milk for Shavuot.^[12]

Milk, Honey, and Cakes

Qalonymus b. Qalonymus lived in Arles in Provence (died after 1328), a border area between Ashkenaz and Sepharad. In his satirical poem Even Bohan (“The Touchstone”) Qalonymus lists a number of actual foods eaten on Shavuot, mostly breads and cakes.

He opens by noting that the Torah’s commandments are sweet like milk and honey, but that some Jews are much more interested in consuming foods made of these ingredients than studying the commandments, and that they would even pawn their possessions to be able to buy cheese^[13] and fine flour to make them:

^{קלונימוס בר קלונימוס אבן בוחן} עד אשר יאפו לֶחֶם מְשֻׁנֶּה מעשה רשת כעכן ולחמניות. ועליהן חלות דבש והדבדבניות. פת הבאה בכסנין רקועי פחים מעשה עבות וסלמות שאינן של עליה. סלם מצב ארצה וראשו מגיע השמימה לשאול תחתיה.

^{Qalonymos Even Bochan} So they can bake different/strange bread,^[14] lattice-work,^[15] crisp breads, and oublies (wafers).^[16] With them loaves with honey, and duvdevaniot,^[17] pat haba’ah bekisnin,^[18] riquʿei fahim ^[19] braids,^[20] and ladders “not for climbing; a ladder planted on the ground, which goes up to heaven” and down to sheʿol (=hell) below.

וטעמם בזה שסלם כמו סיני בגימטריה. גם אמרו בעלי משל וחידה שמספר תרי"ג רמז אל דבש חלב קמחא דסמידא.^[21] והאחד העודף יפתר. לאכל מה שבע והותר. כן היום מנהג בני אמתנו. ביום מתן תורתנו. מלבד שאר מעדנים ומגדים. המנהג כמנהג שאר המועדים.^[22]

Their reason for this is that sulam (“ladder”) is equivalent in gematria, numerical value, to Sinai (=130).^[23] Also those who love parables and riddles said that the number 613 hints at “honey, milk, and fine flour” (=gematria 614).^[24] The extra number is solved by eating as much as can satisfy and even more. This is the custom of our people today, on the day of the giving of our Torah, in addition to the rest of the delicacies and treats, as is the custom on other festivals.

Qalonymus continues by satirising those Jews who were more interested in putting the foods of the festival into their mouths than concerning themselves with the spirit of המצות העוברות דרך הפה “the commandments which come through the mouth.” Here he is playing on the term Torah shebeʿal peh, the usual term used for the Oral Torah later written down and studied as Mishnah and Talmud.

Ashkenazi Shavuot Floden (pies)

From the fifteenth century in Ashkenaz we find Jews baking an exceptionally large Floden, a dairy pie, which they called Sinai. This is described by R. Jacob HaLevi ben Moses Möllin (Maharil), from Mainz (ca 1365–1427) in the rules of taking hallah, i.e., removing some dough for the kohanim (priests):

^{מהרי"ל ספר המנהגים הלכות חלה ז} וכשאופין הרבה פשטידן או פלאדין ושכח ליטול חלה יצרפם בסל ויטול חלה מאחד מהן.

^{Maharil Sefer HaMinhagim Challah §7} When you bake many pashtidan (meat pies) or Floden (dairy pies), and someone forgot to take hallah, join them together in a basket and take hallah from one of them.

ואם הוא ביום טוב של שבועות שאז דרך העולם שעושין פלאדין גדול וקורין לו סיני, אז אם שכח יטול ממנו חלה על כולן ויצניע החתיכה עד מוצאי יום טוב וישרפנה.

And if it was on the festival of Shavuot, during which many people make a large Floden, which they call Sinai, then if someone forgot, take hallah from it for all of the [other pies], and put the piece away until after the festival and then burn it.

In this same period, R. Joseph Yuzel b. Moshe (15^th cent.), in his work detailing the practices of his famous teacher R. Israel Isserlein (ca. 1390–ca. 1460), notes that Isserlein also went out of his way to allow these pies to be baked fresh for Shavuot:

^{לקט ישר אורח חיים א:קג.לד} והיה מתיר לעניים לאפות בשכר ביום טוב כגון פלדן או פשטידא...

^{Leket Yosher OḤ 1:103 §34} He would allow poor people to bake for pay on the festival, for example pashtida or Floden…

R. Joseph adds that Isserlein would eat both dairy and meat on the first day of Shavuot:

^{לקט ישר אורח חיים א:קג.לה} ביום ראשון של שבועות אכל פלדן ודגים מטוגנים בחמאה. ואחר כך היה עושה הדחה לידיו לפיו, ומשים אצבעו לתוך פיו כדי להדיחו יפה, ואחר כך אכל קינוח, ואכל בשר צלי.

^{Leket Yosher OḤ 1:103 §35} On the first day of Shavuot, he would eat Floden, and fish fried in butter. Afterwards, he would wash his hands and mouth, and place his finger in his mouth to ensure he cleaned it well, and afterwards eat a dessert, and then he would eat roasted meat.

A version of this practice, consuming dairy and then meat, is quoted by Remah (R. Moses Isserles, 1530–1572) in his glosses on the Shulchan Arukh (OḤ 494.3).

Seven Heavens Sinai Cakes in Ashkenaz

R. Joseph Yuspe (Nördlinger) Hahn of Frankfurt am Main (d. 1637) describes a muliyyata shaped like a ladder:

^{יוסף אומץ חלק א חג השבועות תתנד} רבים נוהגין לאכול מאכלי חלב ביום ראשון דשבועות, ויש להם על מה שיסמוכו. אכן מפני שאמרו חכמינו ז"ל אין שמחה אלא בבשר ויין, נוהגין לאכול בשר אחריהן. והעושים כן צריכין לדקדק שיטלו כל בני הבית את ידיהם בין חלב לבשר....

^{Yosiph Ometz 1 Shavuot §854} Many have the practice of eating dairy foods on the first day of Shavuot, and they have something they can rely on. And yet, since our sages said “gladness only comes with meat and wine” the practice is to eat meat afterwards. And those who do this must take care that everyone in the house washes their hands between dairy and meat.

...מנהגנו לעשות מולייתא מחלב או בשר ודמות סולם משבע שליבות עליה, זכר לשבעה רקיעים שקרע הקדוש ברוך הוא בשעת מתן תורה להראות שאין עוד מלבדו, והוא מנהג טוב ויפה.

…Our custom is to make a dairy or meat muliyyata in the shape of a ladder with seven bars on it, in memory of the Seven Heavens which the Holy One blessed be He tore at the time of the giving of the Law, to show that there is no other but God alone; and this is a beautiful custom.

The Seven Heavens are noted in the Talmud (b. Hagigah 13a) in a discussion about the Work of Creation and the Work of the Chariot (Maaseh Merkavah), a term referring to Ezekiel’s vision in chapter one. This is read in the synagogue on Shavuot but only mentions one heaven or firmament.^[25]

The Babylonian Talmud says these mysteries should not be studied in depth except by a very select few, and those who do so without permission are at risk. Paradoxically, having warned against study of these mysteries, the BT then spends several pages in a lengthy discussion of them, referring in particular to the Work of the Chariot:

^{בבלי חגיגה יג.} לַיגְמְרַון מָר בְּמַעֲשֵׂה מֶרְכָּבָה! אֲמַר לְהוּ: תְּנֵינָא בְּהוּ ״דְּבַשׁ וְחָלָב תַּחַת לְשׁוֹנֵךְ״, דְּבָרִים הַמְּתוּקִין מִדְּבַשׁ וְחָלָב — יְהוּ תַּחַת לְשׁוֹנֵךְ.

^{b. Hagigah 13a} Let the master instruct us in the Work of the Chariot. He replied: We have learnt about it in the words: “Honey and milk are under your tongue.” (Song of Songs 4.11). Things that are sweeter than honey and milk should remain under your tongue (i.e. unspoken).^[26]

Although Qalonymos makes much of milk and honey on Shavuot, he does not mention the Seven Heavens at all. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the Seven Heavens are actually named one by one in this talmudic discussion, they are barely mentioned by the mediaeval commentators on this page of the Talmud: Rashi and his successors, Qalonymos’ contemporaries the Tosefists, hardly discuss them.

It is possible that the diffusion of the concept of the Seven Heavens needed the push given by the mystics of Safed in the sixteenth century in their qabbalistic study of the Zohar. Qalonymos preceded these mystics, and thus his Shavuot foods only include milk and honey, and various kinds of breads against the background of Mount Sinai and the Giving of the Law, together with the ladder joining heaven and earth, with hell below.

However, an Ashkenazi Shavuot cake specifically associated with milk, Mount Sinai and the Seven Heavens is mentioned in Synagoga Judaica, an account of Jewish customs published in 1603 by Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629), a Christian Hebraist at the University of Basel. In his account of Shavuot, he writes:

^{Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica} [Jews] also eat many dairy foods like scriblitae and liba and other things of the kind made of milk. For the Law which they received on that day was shining, pure and sweet like milk. The Kabbalists bring proof of this… Among other things they make a high, fat, seven-fold scriblita, which is called Mount Sinai scriblita, in memory of the Seven Heavens through which God was revealed on Mount Sinai.^[27]

Buxtorf does not actually specify that the Seven Heavens was a Qabbalistic mystical concept, but the fact that he mentions the concept immediately after speaking of ‘the Cabbalists’ is suggestive. His use of the term scriblita is also significant: this term originally referred to an elaborate cake described by the Roman authors Cato (with multiple layers of pastry and cheese) and Petronius (who tells us honey was poured over it).^[28] Qalonymos also writes of honey (and grape-juice) “on top” of his cakes.

Shavuot breads or cakes appear several times in a paper written by Samuel Krauss in 1915: “Aus der jüdischen Volksküche,” citing R Anatoli and the sixteenth-century R Moses Isserles of Cracow on the custom of eating milk and honey on Shavuot, as well as Buxtorf’s seventeenth-century evidence for a ‘Mount Sinai bread.’ ^[29] By the mid-eighteenth century, we find details of a seven-layered Sinaifladen baked in Germany on Shavuot eve, with cherries, currants or other fruits between each of the layers of the Fladen, in memory of the Seven Heavens which came down to Mount Sinai in layers (schichtweise).^[30]

In the Shavuot volume of his mid-twentieth-century Sefer haMoadim, Yom-Tov Lewinsky (1899–1973) details food customs,^[31] writing of breads baked for festival:^[32]

^{ספר המועדים ג: שבועות} ונוהגים יהודי אשכנז לאפות עוגת הר סיני בשבועות שנקראת ,,ברג סיני קוכען", והיא גדולה, קפולה שבעה, כנגד שבעה רקיעים שד' ירד לתת על הר סיני את חוקיו.

^{Sefer HaMoadim 3: Shavuot} The Jews of Ashkenaz are accustomed to bake a Mount Sinai cake on Shavuot which is called Bergsinaikuchen,^[33] and this is a large cake with seven folds^[34] against the Seven Heavens which God descended to give his laws on Mount Sinai.

This was not the only dairy cake for Shavuot. For instance, Lewinsky quotes the testimony of a German scholar, Rosa Dukas (1889–1967),[35] who describes how German Jews would make קעזקוכן (Käsekuchen) “cheesecake” as a special prize for children who successfully completed counting the omer:

^{ספר המנהגים ג} אולם בבאדן העליונה ובווירטמברג הישנה היה לעוגה זו שם מיוחד ״שבועות קולאטש״ — והיא כעין חלת שמרים קטנה הנקראת בשאר ימות השנה ״בארכאס״, עשויה הפעם בצק מתוק מתובלת צמוקים וממולאה על פי רוב שקדים.

^{Sefer Haminhagim 3} But in upper Baden and old Württemberg, this cake had a special name, Shavuot Koiletsch, and this was like a small yeast hallah which on other days is referred to as berches, but in this case is made of sweet dough, sprinkled with raisins, and generally filled with almonds.^[36]

She states that there was even a saying about these cakes, “Wer gut geomert hat bekomt Koiletsch” i.e., “whoever counted the omer successfully gets a Koiletsch.”

The Oxford historian, Cecil Roth (1899–1970), writes of the Jews of Comtat Venaisson (formerly, “the Pope’s Jews”)^[37]—present-day Vaucluse in southeastern France—who also baked ladder-shaped bread on Shavuot. ^[38]

Thus, the main Ashkenazi tradition for Shavuot was a Mount Sinai cake in the shape of a ladder with seven rungs, or with seven folds, or just possibly in the form of a staircase with seven steps—or simply a seven-layered cake.

Sephardi Seven Heavens Bread

In Sephardic tradition, there is a bread actually called Pan de los Siete Cielos, a Ladino term meaning “Bread of the Seven Heavens.” Like the Ashkenazi version, this would not have begun before the 16^th century at the earliest. Ladino did not become a widely spoken Jewish language before the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Unlike the Ashkenazi Sinaifladen and Bergsinaikuchen, however, Pan de los Siete Cielos is not dairy. (Sephardim generally have far fewer milk dishes than Ashkenazim in general;^[39] it is thus not surprising that their Shavuot centerpiece food is not dairy.)

Lewinsky quotes the testimony of Avraham Elmaliah (1885–1967), an Israeli writer, who describes the practice of Sephardic mothers to bake their children Siete Cielos (Seven Heavens):

^{ספר המנהגים} סייטי סיילוס – שבעת הרקיעים, הם מין לחמניה שהאמהות היו מכינות בחג השבועות כמעט בכל משפחות היהודים בארצות המזרח. ואולם גם מנהג הזה כבר הולך ובטל...

^{Sefer HaMinhagim} Siete Cielos, the seven heavens, is a sort of bread which mothers used to make on Shavuot in almost all Jewish families in the east. But this custom too is dying out…

Notably, despite the ladder imagery, the cake is meant to recall the experience of Moses on Mount Sinai, not Jacob’s dream of the angels in Bethel (Gen 28):^[40]

העוגה היא עגולה ועשויה שבעה ספירות שוות במרכז, זכר דרכו של משה בן עמרם אל הרקיע השביעי שבו נתנה לו התורה.

The cake is round and made with seven concentric circles in memory of the ascent of Moses son of Amram to the Seventh Heaven where he was given the Torah.

כאן מתארים גם את הסולם שעליו עלה משה אל המשכן האלוהי, את מטה משה וגם את הר סיני (כי האמהות הספרדיות קובעות גם את הר סיני ברקיע השביעי), הארון שבו שם משה את שני לוחות הברית, בארה של מרים, שליוותה את בני ישראל במדבר, השליו ונחש הנחושת ששם משה על נס.

Here they also represent the ladder on which Moses ascended to the Divine abode;^[41] his staff; and also Mount Sinai (for the Sephardi mothers place Mount Sinai in the Seventh Heaven as well); the Ark of the Covenant where Moses put the Tablets of the Law; Miriam’s Well which accompanied the Israelites in the desert; the quails; and the brass serpent which Moses put on a pole.^[42]

Unlike the high seven-layered cakes or Floden of Ashkenaz, the shape has morphed over time and space; the ladder is simply an addition here, rather than the shape of the bread, which takes the form of a central monte surrounded by seven concentric rings.^[43] Perhaps this was perceived as more “heavenly” by the women who baked it, to the modern eye, something akin to Saturn’s rings.

Monte Sinai from Italy: Lady Judith Montefiore’s Recipe

The Italian Monte Sinai, connected by its name and shape with the mountain of revelation, was a specialty of the town of Livorno, where Moses Montefiore was born.

A recipe identical to this confection is to be found in his wife Judith’s Jewish cookery book published in London in 1861, under the name Bola d’Amor, “Ball of Love.” It is described as being con uova filate, made “with egg threads,”^[44] an “exquisite confection” with costly ingredients needing much culinary expertise.

Lady Judith does not make any connections with Shavuot, but, according to Giulio Morosini in Venice, these same egg threads layered with marzipan were used, from the seventeenth century on, for this Shavuot confection.^[45] Here is her recipe:

Monte Sinai or Bola d’Amor: The Recipe

The recipe for this much celebrated and exquisite confection is simpler than may be supposed from its elaborate appearance, it requires chiefly care, precision and attention.

Clarify two pounds of white sugar;^[46] take the yolks of twenty eggs, mix them up gently and pass them through a sieve, then have ready a funnel, the hole of which must be about the size of vermicelli; hold the funnel over the sugar, while it is boiling over a charcoal fire; pour the eggs through, stirring the sugar all the time, and taking care to hold the funnel at such a distance from the sugar, as to admit of the egg dropping into it.

When the egg has been a few minutes in the sugar, it will be hard enough to take out with a silver fork, and must then be placed on a drainer; continue adding egg to the boiling sugar till enough is obtained.

There should be previously prepared one pound of sweet almonds, finely pounded and boiled in sugar clarified with orange-flower water only; place in a dish a layer of this paste, over which spread a layer of citron (etrog) cut in thin slices, and then a thick layer of the egg prepared as above.

Continue working thus in alternate layers till high enough to look handsome. It should be piled in the form of a cone, and the eggs should form the last layer.

It must then be placed in a gentle oven till it becomes a little set, and the last layer slightly crisp; a few minutes will affect this. It must be served in the dish in which it is baked and is generally ornamented with myrtle and gold and silver leaf.^[47]

This recipe, then, no longer contains either milk or honey. But it has the advantage that it would have allowed the Montefiores (and other Livorno Jews) to celebrate Shavuot with a meat meal and finish with a magnificent cake in the shape of Mount Sinai, a reminder of the revelation on the day celebrating the giving of the Torah.