New take on Swiss Haus cake: Send in the clone

The light but luscious hazelnut sponge cake from Swiss Haus Bakery, a Philadelphia classic for several generations, has made the cover of the current issue of Cook's Country, an authoritative cooking magazine.

Only it's not the actual recipe that Cook's Country is sharing.

"Oh, no. That would never happen," Swiss Haus head baker Donna Feldman said. But she did offer the inquiring editors a tip about using egg whites.

Staffers at Cook's Country, an affiliate of the cooking show America's Test Kitchen, went their own way with it.

"We don't pretend that this is the same recipe," said Tucker Shaw, the magazine's executive editor. "We took the idea as inspiration."

The frosting, for one, employs a shortcut, he said. Instead of a Swiss meringue buttercream, "we doctored up Marshmallow Fluff." It's topped with chocolate shavings, a technique that goes back to the Rittenhouse bakery's founding as the Swiss Pastry Shop, in the mid-1920s.

Shaw said Jack Bishop, editorial director of America's Test Kitchen, was buttonholed last year at a taping by Swiss Haus fan Caroline Ellwood. She recommended that Cook's Country look into publishing the recipe.

The magazine editors like to revisit favorite American recipes, including lost and regional recipes.

"Something like this is perfect - it has a following," Shaw said. "There is a large Philadelphia diaspora."

Feldman, who has worked at the bakery (35 S. 19th St.) for 18 years, said the cake is what "put this bakery on the map."

"People come in here all the time, and say, 'This is where my parents got their wedding cake,' " she said. "They'll have their original cake topper with them" to affix to a new cake for an anniversary party.

Though Feldman's recipe is safely stored away, Cook's Country offers its recipe online here. The link will work without the need for registration until Nov. 18.