There once was a very small gourmet shop in Amagansett, New York called Besart. Bess, the cook, turned out exquisite croissants, baguettes, quiches, and cakes while her husband, Arthur, testily relieved customers of exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege of taking said delicacies home and eating them. Luckily for us, my mother stopped in at the shop every Saturday morning of the summer for a bag of warm croissants and one of these cakes, called Pain de Gênes. Ah, the Pain de Gênes! It was an irresistibly rich, positively addictive buttery French almond cake. When Bess and Arthur closed the shop, in about 1978, Bess took the secrets of this, and all of her venerated desserts, with her. The memory of her Pain de Gênes has haunted me ever since.

Bess didn’t share her recipes with anyone, not even Craig Claiborne (who, by the way, was crazy about her walnut cake with chocolate frosting). I am happy to share my recipe for this utterly wonderful cake with you. Rest assured, I haven’t left out any secret ingredient.