Instructions: Cream shortening with 1/2 cup sugar and salt, then beat in egg yolks, vanilla and milk. Stir in flour and baking powder. Spread mixture in two round greased 8-inch or 9-inch cake pans.

Beat egg whites with 3/4 cup sugar until stiff. Spread meringue over batter in pans. Combine cinnamon and sugar, and sprinkle over meringue. Top with almonds.

Bake cake in a preheated 350F oven for 30 minutes, or until cake just begins to pull away from sides of pan. Remove from oven, cool slightly, and remove cakes from pans to cool completely on a wire rack.

While cake cools, make filling. Using a chilled bowl and chilled beaters, whip heavy cream until thick. Add sugar, and continue to beat until stiff. Gently stir in raspberries.

Place one cake layer on a plate. Spread with filling. Top with the other cake layer. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

In this country, a torte usually refers to a rich, moist cake of several thin layers with jam, pastry cream or whipped cream in between the layers. Blitz Torte, a popular German torte, calls for a moist, dense yellow cake to be topped with meringue, cinnamon sugar and almonds, and filled with custard. In this Americanized version, the torte is filled not with custard, but with raspberries bound with whipped cream. The combination - almonds, cinnamon, raspberries, whipped cream and cake - is superb. This cake is an impressive end to a celebratory meal.

If you would like to email yourself the recipe for later use, or share the recipe with your friends or family, enter the email addresses below and this recipe will be emailed to you and others as well.