Grated apple tenderizes what might otherwise be a heavy cake.
The cool syrup plumps the hot cake and infuses it with additional flavor and sweetness.
This Sephardic cake is an ideal Passover dessert, as it contains no flour or leavening.
Tishpishti is a traditional Sephardic cake, in the spirit of nutty, sweet, syrupy North African and Middle Eastern desserts like baklava. Though it’s commonly served at Passover, when flour and leavening action are forbidden, I like it any time I need a gluten-free dessert. This is my Americanized version: a heady mix of spices and citrus, with grated apple added to the traditional nut-based cake. Rather than rose blossom syrup, I opt for a ginger-infused syrup that’s boozy with Applejack, America’s own apple brandy.

For the Syrup:
1 cup sugar (7 ounces; 200g)
1 1/2 cups unsweetened apple juice (12 ounces; 340g)
2-inch piece ginger (2 ounces; 60g), unpeeled, cut in half lengthwise and smashed
Zest from 1 medium lemon
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (1/2 ounce; 14g), from about 1 lemon
4 tablespoons Applejack brandy (2 ounces; 60g)
For the Cake:
4 large eggs (6.8 ounces; 190g)
3/4 cup sugar (5 3/4 ounces; 160g)
1 teaspoon (4g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use about half as much by volume or the same by weight
1 cup vegetable oil (8 ounces; 220g), or any other neutral oil
2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger (1 ounce; 30g)
2 1/2 cups almond flour (8 ounces; 230g)
1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts (6.2 ounces; 175g)
2 teaspoons (6g) ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 cups grated unpeeled Fuji apple (12 ounces; 340g), from about 2 medium apples

Next, I very slowly add oil in a thin stream. Adding the oil too quickly will flip the emulsion inside out, dispersing water droplets into the oil and resulting in a greasy sauce, so it’s important to take it slow.

I interrupt the oil stream after each half cup with spoonfuls of lemon juice and water. This prevents overcrowding the liquid phase with too many droplets of oil and breaking the emulsion. Continuing this process, alternating with oil and water, will yield a fluffy, thick, and stable garlic sauce. Add more oil for a thicker and milder spread, or less for a more pungent and free-flowing sauce.

How to Fix Toum When It Breaks
Sometimes, even after you’ve delicately drizzled in oil and patiently made your garlic paste, this fussy sauce will still break—perhaps because the food processor overheated the toum, or the garlic was old and dry. Don’t worry: You can harness the emulsifying powers of an egg white to bring it back together. Just combine one egg white with a quarter cup of the broken emulsion, and process until fluffy before slowly pouring in the rest. Although this won’t be a traditional toum, it will still be delicious and creamy.

Stocked with homemade toum, you’ll never be left to suffer the whims of miserly takeout portions or greedy husbands again.

Thankfully, toum is pretty easy to make and stays fresh in the fridge for a month, so there’s no reason not to always have a surplus. Ever since realizing this, I’ve been able to focus on more important things during dinner—like constructing the perfect bite of shish tawook, charred onion, and pickles on my fork.
This gutsy spread is a staple of Lebanese cuisine, and more than just another condiment. It’s great for stirring into soups and pasta, marinating chicken, and tossing with roasted vegetables; it adds an energetic punch of garlic to anything, without requiring the hassle of daily peeling and mincing. It’s also a pungent vegan alternative to mayo, and serves to perk up any sandwich. Toum has become a staple in my fridge, and, since it requires only four ingredients and a food processor to make, there’s nothing stopping you from also living beyond the limits of a few two-ounce containers.

What Is Toum?
Toum is essentially a mayonnaise, but it’s stabilized with garlic instead of egg. Just like mayo, toum is an emulsion of oil into water made possible with the help of a third-party emulsifier.