Sponge cake is a simple cake made with beaten eggs (usually egg whites only), flour, and sugar. There are many versions of it all over the world, and being based on such a simple, basic recipe, there is no need to assume that all have the same historical origin. Nevertheless, it is said to have originated in Iberia, which the Italian name “pan di Spagna” seems to confirm, although it is also possible that originally it was actually called “pan di spugna” (“sponge bread”) in Italian.
An Iberian origin of these types of cakes seems even more likely when one looks at how their use spread through the Jewish diaspora. As the batter does not contain water or leavening agents, it is an ideal cake for Pesaḥ. In the Sephardic tradition, flour does not become ḥāmēṣ until it comes into contact with water. So, the Sephardic (but also Italian, Oriental, etc.) cuisine for Pesaḥ knows many cookies made with eggs, oil, wine, etc. Versions of the Levantine “masot de vino” are still sold today in Israel under the brands of Papouchado and Gattegno. The Jewish community of Rome can not imagine Pesaḥ without their “ciambellette”, a ring-shaped cookie made with flour, eggs, sugar, and olive oil. Ashkenazi Jews generally do not consider these “maṣṣā ʿashīrā” (“enriched maṣṣā”) cookies kasher for Pesaḥ, and since the Ashkenazi traditions have become more and more dominant in Jewish communities around the world, slowly these pastries are becoming a rare sight also in non-Ashkenazi communities. The once famous “prialetes” of the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam were replaced by a version made with ground maṣṣōṯ instead of flour, which weren’t a big success, and today few people remember even those.
There is an exception though: even in Ashkenazi tradition, maṣṣā ʿashīrā may be given to young children and the sick. This is because even Ashkenazim do not consider them ḥāmēṣ, but abstain from eating them as a mere stringency. So, in many Ashkenazi communities, maṣṣā ʿashīrā was baked on purpose to give to the sick.
In the Jewish communities of the Netherlands, particularly in Amsterdam, there was such a cookie that was made specifically for Pesah. It was known as “pálewie”(1850), “plewe koekje”(1862), “pleve koekje”(1871-1886), “palewes”(1872), “pleverkoekje”(1894), and similar names. Sometimes, the rabbis of the Ashkenazi community would remind people through the Jewish newspapers that the cookies are only meant for young children and the sick and should not be eaten during Pesah by healthy adults.
But their consumption was not limited to Pesaḥ. Plevekoekjes or pleverkoeken were and are also eaten throughout the year. In the Portuguese community, they are eaten during the “schoteltjesavond”, a festive ceremony on the 15th of Sheḇāṭ where certain foods are eaten, and certain texts are read. The pleverkoek represents wheat during this ceremony.
In the province of Groningen, there are local traditional cakes called “pleverkouke”, with a similar recipe and most likely the same Jewish origin.
On Curaçao, the very similar “panlevie” cookie doesn’t seem to have a strong connection to Pesaḥ (anymore?), but it is a very popular traditional treat for Jewish holidays and festivities in general.
Israel Zangwill, in his Children of the Ghetto (1892), describes how the Jews of London ate “unleavened palavas” during Pesaḥ. Josef Daniël de Jong, in his 1906 Dutch translation, translates this as “ongedeesemde 'paleves' (eierkoeken)”. The modern British Jewish “plava” is also a sponge cake, and likely shares the same origin.
In Hamburg, the typical festival cake was “plebe”, a sponge cake made with almond flour. In the 1726 regulations of the Ashkenazi Hamburg-Altona-Wandsbek community (Dreigemeinde),
There are similar Jewish pastries, mostly for Pesaḥ, known by names that do not seem to share the same etymology. Like the already mentioned “prialetes” of Amsterdam. It is hard to reconstruct how they were originally made, but certain is that they were made with egg whites, flour, and sugar. In Venice, the Jews make “àpere” on Pesaḥ, that are made with eggs, flour, sugar and some anise and/or lemon zest. These were actually described as “plewekoekjes” by a Dutch Jewish visitor to Venice in the 1920’s. In Bordeaux, the Portuguese Jews make “michotes” for Pesaḥ, and the recipe is almost identical to that of the Venetian àpere. Different versions of cookies and cakes called “bocca di dama”, and the aforementioned “pan di Spagna” also have a long history among the Jews of Italy. The Livornese and Modenese “bocca di dama” is a sponge cake made with almond flour instead of wheat flour, just like the Hamburger “plebe”. In a manuscript with recipes of a non-Jewish lady of Amsterdam, Mrs. Marselis, from around 1790, there is a recipe called “joodekoekjes” (“jew cookies”), that describes sponge biscuits that are identical to plevekoekjes.
There exists a theory that “plever” comes from “palaveren”, a judeo-luso-dutch (not a recognised language :) ) word meaning “to talk”, but it doesn't fit with especially the earlier versions of the word.
It was a Moroccan Jewish cookie that gave me a valuable clue about a possible etymology. There are several cookies and cakes from the Jewish communities of Morocco that go by the names of “palebes”, “pallebes”, “pellebes”, “pallibes”, and similar. At least in some places they used to be associated with Pesaḥ. In Rabat, a cookie called “paleppa” is enjoyed also by the local non-Jews. In a 1998 article in EDNA, Simon Lévy suggests an etymology: “pan leve”, a local term from Iberia meaning “light bread”. So far, that is the most plausible etymology I have seen suggested. It could explain all the variations in various countries. And in fact, the Priberam dictionary of the Portuguese language gives “pão leve” as a synonym for “pão de ló”, which is sponge cake.
In a 19th century manuscript of recipes from the home of the Lopes Suasso family of The Hague, transcribed, commented on, and published by Rudolf Nunes Ferro in 2002 under the title “Suasso’s Kookrecepten”, there is a recipe called “poun leve”. It gives the recipe for a sponge cake batter but isn’t very clear on how to bake the cake/cookies. "Poun" sounds like a phonetic rendering in Dutch of how the Portuguese “pão” might have been pronounced by the author, so most probably this is indeed a recipe for pão leve, and the ancestor of the different types of plevekoek in The Netherlands.
