Summer Desserts
How to make
semifreddo and sorbetto
Summer is
here. Sunny days require fresh, light
food. By instinct I am using low fat
double cream and less butter when I prepare dinners, but more fresh vegetables
and fruit.
To sweeten
the weekend, especially if it is hot, here are two delicious desserts to taste
with family and friends.
Semifreddo
You need
three eggs and three yolks, five tbsp of a sweet liquor (in Italy we use
Marsala but here I am using Stamford Cream (fortified British wine 15% vol.),
200g. of sugar, 300g. of whipping cream, salt, 100g. of chocolate and 50g. of
digestive biscuits.
Start
cooking the eggs and yolks with the sugar and liquor, stirring till it thickens
but does not boil. Let it cool. In the meantime whip the cream and grind the
chocolate and the biscuits. Mix them all together, add a pinch of salt and pour
the mixture in a rectangular mould you have previously greased with a light
oil. Freeze for some hours. You can
serve it sliced with cream or syrup or finger biscuits.
Sorbetto
This is a
quick and tasty dessert. You need a
powerful blender, 300g. of strawberries, 150g. of icing sugar, the juice of one
lemon and 500g ice cubes.
Put all the
ingredients in the blender, mix them and serve.
Easy, isn’t it?
Instead of strawberries
you can have raspberries, blueberries or the traditional lemon sorbet with two
peeled lemons…or two peeled oranges for the orange sorbet.
Enjoy the
warmth of the sun and the cool freshness of the ice. Opposites balance best.
Struffoli
An easy,
colourful dessert.
The grandmother who lived with us when I was a child used to make
struffoli to celebrate whatever was worthy to celebrate, Christmas, birthdays
and Easter. She was from a little village near Sorrento where struffoli are a
traditional dessert. Besides she loved seeing my dad guzzling them.
I had great fun making struffoli with her on the green Formica-top table
of our kitchen and pinching the hundreds & thousands from the plastic box
where she kept them. They were so specially sweet and crunchy. The bright
colours of the hundreds & thousands sprinkled on it reminded me of spring
flowers.
To make struffoli you need 250g. of flour, two eggs plus a yolk of an
egg, two tbsp of olive oil, one tbsp of sugar, one tbsp of a spirit you like,
grated lemon rind, a pinch of salt, to decorate: 300g. of honey, hundreds &
thousands and oil to fry.
Mix all the ingredients for the dough in a bowl and knead it. Then cover
the dough and let it rest for half an hour. Make round rolls ½ inch thick and
fry them in deep hot oil. When they are lightly browned drain them. Warm the
honey in a pot and pour it on the struffoli, add the hundreds & thousands
and mix. Chill it before serving.
Happy Easter!
Blackberry Jam
Free jam at
hand
Back from
holidays at the end of August, we went cycling in Salt Ayre near Lancaster.
Riding along the track with Valentina behind me on her little pink bike with
stabilizing wheels, I noticed a lot of blackberry bushes. The berries were
still red and unripe.
My husband,
who was roller skating instead, spotted a huge overhanging bush with big juicy
blackberries. We ate a few, then decided to harvest them. Working for more than
half an hour, scratching our hands and arms with the thorns covering each
branch, stem or leaf of the bush, we managed to fill a little plastic bag. We
left as many berries to other passersby who might have had our same passion for
blackberries.
At home I
washed them and prepared part of them for dessert by mixing them with sugar and
lemon juice. But what to do with the rest? About half a kilo of ripe
blackberries. Jam, I thought. I remembered that I needed more or less the same
amount of sugar. So I cooked the blackberries with a little water till boiling
point. Then I crushed the fruits through a strainer and put everything back in
the pot, adding 400 g of sugar. I let it boil for a while till it became
thicker and deliciously sweet. I poured it hot in jars I had previously washed
and dried and closed the lid. Now I have two and a half jars of luscious
home-made blackberry jam for winter time. Fantastic considering it was free.
Next year,
have a look at Salt Ayre cycling track in late August. You may be equally
lucky.
Roulade with cream and strawberries
A splendid
birthday cake
My husband’s
birthday is on 17th February, an unlucky number in Italy. Actually he was born on Friday 17th
(even more unlucky) and had his 17th birthday on Friday 17th.
He always says this brought him good
luck instead.
To celebrate
his birthday I am planning to prepare his favourite cake, a cream and
strawberry roulade, a type of Swiss Roll.
Here are the
ingredients:
Six eggs,
150 g sugar, 150 g flour, 50 g butter, 1tsp baking powder, half a tsp bicarbonate
of soda.
For the
filling and decoration you need: 250g of strawberries, 500 g of whipping cream,
2 tbsp of sugar.
Use oiled
greaseproof or baking paper.
Whisk the
eggs and the sugar for at least fifteen minutes till you have a smooth, frothy
mixture. Add the melted butter, baking
powder and bicarbonate of soda and the flour little by little. Keep beating. Pour the mixture onto oiled paper laid onto a
rectangular baking tray. Bake for half
an hour/forty-five minutes at 180° C.
Dampen a cotton
tea towel and place over the cake. Turn
tray over, so that the cake lies on the damp tea towel. Lift off the tray and peel off the paper
carefully. Roll the cake in the tea
towel and wait till it cools. For the
filling, whip the cream with two tbsp of sugar and mix half of it with the
strawberries cut in small pieces (keep three or four strawberries to decorate
the cake). Unroll the cake and spread
thickly with the cream and strawberry mix. Roll it up again (without the tea towel) and
place it on a tray or large plate. Cover
it with the remaining cream and decorate it with the remaining strawberries cut
in half. Store it in the fridge. It is delicious even after a day or two.
I am sure my
husband will lick his lips.
Panpepato
A seasonal
treat
During my
Christmas holiday in Italy I came across lots of delicious food. We had lasagne, gnocchi, ravioli,
tortellini, fettuccine, roasted and stewed lamb, fried haddock, roasted bass,
sea salad and several kinds of sweets, biscuits and cakes.
I especially
enjoyed panpepato this year, a treat I made from a secret recipe given
to me by a friend from Umbria. Here it
is:
200 g of
hazel nuts, 200 g of walnuts, 200 g of almonds, 200 g of pine nuts, 200 g of
raisins and candied fruit, 200 g of milk chocolate (optional), 500 g of honey,
half a tsp of ground black pepper, half a tsp of ground nutmeg, 350 g of flour.
Chop the
nuts and almonds on a chopping board using a crescent-shaped chopping knife
(mezzaluna). Mix them in a large bowl
and add the candied fruit and raisins.
If these are in big pieces chop them as well. Pour in the honey (warm it in a pan if it is
solid) and mix. Add the black pepper,
nutmeg and flour. Stir and mix well,
finally adding the chopped chocolate if you like. Form little cakes five inches
in diameter and bake them on an oiled tray or on baking parchment: 180°C for
forty-five minutes. Remove them from the
parchment and let them cool. When you
serve it cut it in thin slices using a sharp knife. It is even tastier after a
few days.
Happy New
Year!
Tiramisù
The true tiramisu
recipe
In Italy we
had a busy Christmas as usual, bustling with relatives and friends, plenty of
food and drink and with some pleasant outings.
My
mother-in-law gave me a handy Tiramisù recipe which I prepared as soon as I
arrived in Lancaster. Here it is.
For each 100
g of mascarpone you need: one egg, one and a half tbsp of sugar, coffee (or
decaffeinated coffee), any kind of spirit (optional) and rich tea biscuits.
First of all
prepare the creamy filling. Whip the whites of the eggs stiff and separately
beat the yolks with sugar till they become pale. Mix the mascarpone with the yolks and fold in the whites.
Then dunk
the biscuits in the coffee (or coffee and spirit) and lay them in a rectangular
glass, plastic or china container. The biscuits can overlap if necessary. Pour
some filling on the biscuits and lay another layer of biscuits, then the
filling on top again. Carry on till the filling is finished. It should be the
top layer. Finally sprinkle with cocoa and chill overnight. Alternatively you
can freeze it for a summer treat dessert.
Maritozzi, a Lenten treat
This is a typical treat
you find mainly in Rome. Originally it was a Lenten treat, when the diet was so
strict that you needed a treat to carry on. Nowadays you can find Maritozzo in almost every bar of the
capital, usually consumed at breakfast.
It is a Panini, filled
with dried fruits or opened and stuffed with a delicious cream. The name (maritozzo) is an affectionate, humorous
take on the Italian word for husband (marito),
The vaguely phallic, elongated shape reminds people of the abstinence from sex
they were supposed to practice in Lent. This is reflected in the traditional
rhyme:
Original text, dialect
of Rome:
Er primo è pe' li presciolosi er siconno pe' li sposi
er terzo pe' li innamorati
er quarto pe' li disperati
Italian version:
Il primo morso è per chi ha fretta
Il secondo è per gli sposi
Il terzo per gli innamorati
Il quarto per i disperati
English version:
The first bite is for people in a hurry
The second is for married couples
The third is for people in love
The fourth is for the truly desperate
The desperate are the people who can’t find love, of
course, and have to be content with a maritozzo,
not a real husband.
Here is the recipe.
You need: 500 g of flour, 100 g of sugar, three tbsp of
sunflower oil, two eggs, 250 ml of warm water, 7 g of dry yeast, the grated
zest of a lemon; alternatively: candied fruit, raisins and pine nuts (200 g in
total), or 200 ml of whipping cream.
Mix flour, sugar, oil, yeast and eggs in a bowl, add the
warm water (if you are doing the fruit
version you need to add the raisins, softened in water for about 10 minutes,
candied fruit and pine nuts at this point) and stir with a fork. Then knead it
for a while, adding flour if it is too sticky. Cover it with a damp cloth and
let it rest and rise for two to three hours in a warm place.
Form elongated Panini and set them on a greased oven
tray. Cover with clingfilm and let them rise for another hour. Beat an egg and
brush it onto the surface of the maritozzi,
then bake at 180° C for half an hour.
For the cream version, you need to open them when cool
and fill them with abundant whipped cream.
Have a sweet Lent.
Mostaccioli
They are
diamond shaped biscuits originally from Naples, or the south of Italy, dating
back to the Roman times when they prepared it with mosto (grape must), from which the name of mostaccioli. A treat for Christmas festivities.
You
need: 500 g of flour, 150 g of sugar, 100 g of almonds, 100 g of walnuts, 150
ml of coffee (or decaf coffee) with sugar, 150 g of honey, one tsp of cinnamon,
one tsp of baking powder, one orange (juice and zest) and 200 g of dark
chocolate to decorate.
Chop the
nuts and add all the other ingredients (except for the chocolate). Mix well and
spread the mixture (about half an inch thick) on an oven tray lined by backing
paper. Bake for ten minutes, 180°C, then take it out and cut the dough in diamond
shapes or in squares ( it’s easier). Put it back in the oven for another half
an hour till they are brown. Let them cool then melt the dark chocolate in a
pan bain marie. Spread the melted chocolate on the biscuits or dip them in it.
Serve cold.
Zuppa Inglese English Soup or Trifle?
Recently I woke up at five in the morning to supervise my
autistic daughter’s early routines (loo, getting dressed, drinking water). She
went back to bed after a while but I couldn’t fall asleep so I decided to make
a cake. I remembered I used to make zuppa
inglese with my grandmother when I was a child, with sponge cut in pieces,
soaked in liqueur and custard cream and meringue spread on top. We made it when
the sponge didn’t turn out so well or just when we fancied a cake with liqueur
(which my dad adored). The literal translation of zuppa inglese is ‘English soup’, but it doesn’t look or taste like
a soup at all. I suppose the name refers to the fact that, as with soup where you soak or dunk some
bread, you dunk the sponge in a sweet liquid or liqueur. It was certainly
inspired by the English Trifle and it can be made in different ways, e.g. using
ice cream instead of custard and a kind of Italian biscuit called savoiardi instead of sponge cake.
Here is my way
of making it.
For the sponge
cake you need: 4 eggs and 2 egg yolks, 150 g of flour, 150 g of sugar, 50 g of
melted butter and one tsp of baking powder.
Whip the eggs
and yolks with the sugar for about fifteen minutes, till the mixture becomes
pale, soft and foamy. Add the melted butter and the flour plus the baking
powder little by little and keep whipping. Cover a baking tray with baking
paper and spread the mixture on it. Bake for about forty-five minutes at 180°
C. When it is ready let it cool and cut it in rectangular or square pieces.
This is my way
of preparing the custard cream: 2 eggs, a few drops of vanilla flavour, 400 ml
of milk, 3tbsp of sugar, 3 tbsp of flour. Mix the eggs, sugar and flour well,
add the milk and vanilla flavour. Cook the mixture, stirring, till it becomes thick.
Prepare a
mixture of water, sugar and liqueur and dunk the pieces of sponge cake in it,
then set them on a glass or china terrine. Start with a thin layer of custard
cream, then the soaked sponge and the cream again. Make at least two layers
ending with the cream.
For the topping
prepare the meringue: use the whites of two eggs mixed with 4 tbsp of sugar,
whipped till stiff and spread on the cake. Sprinkle with hundreds and thousands
or with chocolate chips and bake for half an hour at 80°C. When it is ready let
it cool before serving.
I was proud of the way I employed my unexpected spare time.
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