Panforte di Siena: Recipe
Siena, like other towns and cities in Tuscany, has a large number of cake shops, pasticcerie, selling delicious traditional cakes and little biscuits, which make great treats to eat at Christmas. The most widely known are cantucci (often known as biscotti), which are small hard biscuits with large chunks of almond. They’re meant to be dunked into a cup of coffee as a snack, or dipped in a glass of vin santo at the end of a meal. You’ll also find cavallucci (‘little horses’) - unusual buns, flavoured with aniseed and studded with candied fruits, and ricciarelli, gorgeously moist and chewy almond biscuits. Of course panettone - the best known Italian Christmas cake - is widely available, but Siena also has its own distinctive Christmas cake, panforte. This is fruity, dark, highly spiced – and extremely rich. It's also pretty simple to make.
Ingredients – for Panforte di Siena (Serves at least 10)
- 175g/6oz chopped hazelnuts
- 50g/2oz whole almonds
- 75g/3oz chopped almonds
- 255g/9oz candied mixed peel, chopped
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 115 g/ 4 oz honey
- 115 g/ 4 oz caster sugar
- 50g/2oz plain (all purpose) flour
plus
- icing sugar – for decoration
- butter
- 20cm/8in round cake tin (ideally one with a loose bottom)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2. Grease the cake tin with a little butter, then line the base of the tin with greaseproof paper (or use rice paper).
- Place the nuts, candied mixed peel, spices and flour into a large mixing bowl and stir together well with a wooden spoon.
- Put the honey and caster sugar into a large, heavy bottomed saucepan and gradually bring to the boil. Keep stirring the syrup and testing it every so often: either by using a sugar thermometer – remove from the heat when it reaches approx 138C / 280 F; or by taking a little of the syrup onto a teaspoon and dropping it into a glass of cold water – remove from the heat the mixture forms a ball.
- Pour the hot sugar/honey syrup onto the nut/peel mixture and stir them together well. The mixture stiffens quickly, so work hard. Then pour the mix into the cake tin.
- Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 30- 40 minutes. The cake will not rise, but will be ready when a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cooking time may vary.
- When it’s ready, remove from the oven and allow to cool. The cake will gradually harden. When it’s cooled, remove from the tin and turn onto a plate. Dredge the top with sieved icing sugar. Serve in small slices, perhaps with a glass of prosecco, or vin santo or a cup of coffee.
There is a chocolate version of panforte. Just add a couple of ounces of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients, and 2-3 oz of melted chocolate to the honey/sugar syrup. Some people also like to add a pinch of ground cloves to the mixture.
