Your Favourite Recipe

09 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by Un po' di pepe in Mangiamo!, Recipes

Tags

Cannolo Award, Capri, Dolcevitabloggers, Dolci, Gluten-free baking, Gluten-free chocolate cake, Southern Italy, Torta Caprese, Traditional recipes

For the second time in 3 months, I wrote about the wrong topic for the monthly #dolcevitabloggers linkup! I was frantically trying to finish a detailed review of my favourite book, only to find that other posts were on the topic of ‘favourite Italian recipe’. Mannaggia! I had taken a screenshot of the list of topics, but a few of them were switched.

So…. my favourite recipe? Hmmm. That is almost like asking a mamma which one is her favourite child! I love food and have too many faves to pick just one. I think it is better if I write about your favourite recipe! I had a look through the recipe category of my blog. There are 14 recipe posts-half are desserts. My favourite ingredients seem to be ricotta, limoncello, orange and olive oil! The most popular recipe post, by a massively huge margin, is Torta Caprese all’Arancia. I posted this recipe in honour of my 2015 Cannolo Award.

Caprese (cah•PREH•seh) means ‘from Capri’ (CAP•ree) the beautiful island off the coast of Napoli. I suppose caprese could also mean ‘goatlike’ since capra is goat? We’ll stick with ‘from Capri’.

There are a few different stories about how Torta Caprese came to be. The most likely is that it was invented by mistake in the 1920’s by a kitchen worker at an Austrian owned pensione on Capri. He added mandorle tritate –ground almonds, instead of flour while trying to make something similar to an Austrian Sachertorte. It was a big hit, and went on to be served at all of the hotels and tea rooms on Capri.

The basic recipe involves mixing melted butter and chocolate in a ‘bagno-maria’ with sugar and egg yolks, then adding whipped egg whites and ground almonds. Liqueur, usually Strega, is added. The cake has a hard thin shell and moist interior and the center tends to sink in a bit from the sides.

I recently tasted a yummy orange Torta Caprese, so I decided to try my own version. After a bit of experimentation, and substituting Gran Marnier for Strega, I ended up with a very nice Torta Caprese all’ Arancia. It is a 3 bowl recipe, so be prepared to wash them!

Read the rest of the original post Torta Caprese all’ Arancia to find the step-by-step recipe and find out what the Cannolo Award is all about.

This post is written as part of the monthly #dolcevitabloggers linkup, hosted by Jasmine of Questa Dolce Vita, Kelly of Italian at Heart and Kristie of Mamma Prada, the 7th -14th of every month. Hopefully next time I will prepare the correct topic! You will have to wait until November to read about my favourite Italian book!

Here is me posing on my first visit to Capri when I was 16. Unfortunately I didn’t know about Torta Caprese at the time.

Ciao, Cristina

Secondo Bloghiversario!

25 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by Un po' di pepe in Blogging

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

Cannolo Award, Italian pronunciation guide

Today is Un po’ di pepe’s secondo bloghiversario-2nd anniversary of blogging! I can’t believe 2 years has already gone by since I hit the big blue PUBLISH button for the first time.

In honour of the bloghiversario, last week I finally made my most viewed post June 2014’s ‘Italiano per Ristoranti~How to pronounce your menù’ into a PDF that is downloadable from the blog. It only took 22 months to get it done, but as my Mamma says ‘Meglio tardi che mai’-better late than never! Click on the link in red and the PDF is available at the end of the post. I’m thinking of adding more content and turning this into an ebook available on Amazon. Hopefully it won’t take me another 22 months to do that! Another exciting thing that happened in year 2 of blogging was receiving a Cannolo Award.

One more thing I will do in honour of the bloghiversario is post a link to my first real post ‘Il Gigante~Michelangelo’s David’.

Stay tuned for more ‘cose interessanti’- interesting stuff in year 3 including a series on wines of Puglia. In August I will be reading at the AICW (Association of Italian Canadian Writers) Conference in Padula and blogging from there. Please leave a comment if there is something you’d like to read more about. Grazie a tutti i miei lettori, Cristina

Torta Caprese all’ Arancia

25 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by Un po' di pepe in Mangiamo!, Recipes

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Cannolo Award, Capri, Dolci, Gluten-free chocolate cake, Italian food, Southern Italy, Torta Caprese, Traditional recipes

In honour of my recent Cannolo Award, I thought this post should be food related. What is a Cannolo Award? Read about it here. Although I love them, I will not be writing about cannoli, but rather about Torta Caprese.

The super cute-issimo cannolo logo

Caprese (cah•PREH•seh) means ‘from Capri’ (CAP•ree) the beautiful island off the coast of Napoli. I suppose caprese could also mean ‘goatlike’ since capra is goat? We’ll stick with ‘from Capri’.

There are a few different stories about how Torta Caprese came to be. The most likely is that it was invented by mistake in the 1920’s or 30’s by a kitchen worker who added ground almonds (mandorle tritate) instead of flour while trying to make something similar to an Austrian Sachertorte for visitors at an Austrian owned pensione on Capri. It was a big hit, and went on to be served at all of the hotels and tea rooms on the island.

The basic recipe involves mixing melted butter and chocolate in a ‘bagno-maria’ with sugar and egg yolks, then adding whipped egg whites and ground almonds. Liqueur, usually Strega, is added. The cake has a hard thin shell and moist interior and the center tends to sink in a bit from the sides.

I recently tasted a yummy orange Torta Caprese, so I decided to try my own version. After a bit of experimentation, and substituting Gran Marnier for Strega, I ended up with a very nice Torta Caprese all’ Arancia. It is a 3 bowl recipe, so be prepared to wash lots of dishes!

Torta Caprese all’ Arancia

Ingredients:

250g dark chocolate 70%
175g (¾ cup) butter at room temperature
110g (½ cup) sugar
110g (½ cup) brown or golden sugar
grated peel of a large orange
3 tablespoons Gran Marnier, Mandarino, or other orange liqueur
6 eggs, separated
150g (1½ cups) ground blanched almonds (also called almond flour or almond meal)
½ a bustina (packet) Lievito Bertolini or Pane degli Angeli (substitute 2½ teaspoons baking powder if you can’t find these)
pinch of salt
Icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 180° C (350° F).

2. Butter the sides of a round springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

3. Melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler or ‘bagno-maria’ (a stainless steel bowl in a pan of hot water) and let cool. This can also be done with a glass bowl in the microwave but be careful-only heat in 30 second intervals and stir well.

4. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and brown sugar, then add to the chocolate. Stir in alcohol and grated orange peel.

5. Whip egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Add the white sugar.

6. In another bowl, mix almond flour, lievito or baking powder and salt together with a fork. Fold the chocolate mixture in with a rubber spatula, then fold in egg whites.

7. Pour batter into pan and bake for 55 minutes to 1 hour, until center is firm. The center sink in a bit. Remove the sides of the pan and slide the cake onto a platter.

8. Dust with icing sugar and serve with orange slices and whipped cream or gelato. Store at room temperature for up to 3 days…if it lasts that long!

Buon Appetito! Mille grazie to my amiche Anna and Shannon who were very motivated to help me photograph the finished cake. I wouldn’t let them cut it and have a piece until the photos were done!