Pandolce Genovese
Hello and happy holidays, everyone!
The Bread Baker’s Guild of America (bbga.org [1]) offered a course, Italian Holiday Baking, in September 2013. I was delighted to attend, the class was outstanding, and it was taught by Chef Biagio Settepani of Pasticceria Bruno [2]in New York.
Chef Settepani took us through a wide range beautiful, colorful, and delicious Italian celebratory breads and pastries, in the weekend class. This Pandolce Genovese is one of the holiday treats we made. It is full of fruit and flavor (orange, lemon, almond, anise, raisin), fairly quick to make, and very nice for gift-giving! :^)
I made this last year with some homemade candied citron in place of candied lemon peel. (Buddha’s hand citron, before and after candying – I hope to find these again at the market sometime- the flavor was incredible!)
This year’s version was made with store-bought citron (greener in color), and lightly toasted slivered almonds in place of the pine nuts.
I googled Pandolce Genovese to see if a recipe was available online; and found a version of Chef Settepani’s recipe published here [3].
This recipe notes to soak the raisins in Marsala. We did that in class for one of the breads we made and the raisins were so delicious! I will plan ahead and give the raisins the special treatment the next time I make this Pandolce :^)
The table below is based the online recipe (vanilla intentionally not included).
In the photo below, I divided into 7 pieces as I mixed a larger batch.
... just mixed, and loaded with dried fruit!
6 Pandolce Genovese are destined for gifts, and 1 was sampled for ‘quality control’ :^)
...crumbly, enjoyed when still warm from the oven…!
Buon natale, buon cottura, e buon appetito!
:^) breadsong