Category: recipes of Italian cuisine

Banana + Toffee = Banoffee! A super sweet dessert – Italian Cuisine

If you love bananas and caramel this is the cake for you. These two ingredients combined in a single dessert and then whipped cream and chocolate flakes. Can you imagine something more greedy?

The banoffee pie is one typically Anglo-Saxon cake of rather recent origins.
It was invented by the pastry chef of a London restaurant in the 70s and has since become famous all over the world.
If you have never tried it, immediately start working because it is an easy dessert to prepare it does not even need to be cooked in the oven. It is perfect in all seasons and will drive big and children crazy.

The base of biscuits

Biscuits and butter, practically the same basis of the classic cheesecake.
Melt 120 g of butter and mix it with 200 g of Digestive biscuits finely chopped.
Use a round hinge mold and press the mixture well on the bottom before storing it in the fridge.

The caramel cream

It is a simple caramel prepared melting in the pan 100 g of butter and 100 g of brown sugar.
Once you have prepared the sugar base, add 400 g of condensed milk and mix again with a hand whisk for 15 minutes.
Let the cream cool down and then make the banoffee pie.

Bananas

There is no variant of the banoffee pie with other fruits, because as we said at the beginning, the name of this cake is banana.
Choose them mature, but not too much. and cut them into thick slices because they have to feel and not become a cream.

How to prepare the banoffee pie

Once the base is ready and cooled, pour the mixture into it caramel leveling it well.
Then add some banana washers and completed with tufts of whipped Cream.
Decorate everything with plenty dark chocolate flakes.
You can also add grain of dried fruit for a crunchy touch.

Brown sugar. It is not brown sugar.

This is an ingredient that you will find very often in the recipes of Anglo-Saxon origin.
It is a white sugar, finely chopped and mixed with molasses.
It can be found in some stores that specialize in sweet products and has the ability to make a dough is softer and more elastic and gives the typical rubbery consistency to cakes, biscuits and creams. He has a very particular right that he knows about caramel.
You can prepare without much difficulty even at home.
Consider that the proportion is 10 parts of white sugar and 1 part of molasses. Mix everything and you will get your brown sugar homemade.

Condensed milk: the basic ingredient

Another little used ingredient in our traditional cuisine, but super popular in American and British dessert recipes.
You find it in a jar or in a tube in all supermarkets and you can use it for the preparation of cakes, pralines and especially for the famous ice cream without ice cream maker.
We advise you to make a good stock and store it in the pantry. It could be useful to you very often!

Are you curious to try the recipe for this amazing cake? Then we give you some more ideas in the gallery.

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Coffee in the kitchen (starry) does not come just after a meal – Italian Cuisine

Coffee at the restaurant does not come just at the time of dessert but is an ingredient on which research is done. The chef Marcello Trentini, Nespresso coffee sommelier, is a pioneer: he cooks and serves it as a cocktail combined with his tasting menu (and with this contemporary finanziera)

The coffee at the restaurant it is always an unknown quantity, often it does not measure up and literally leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It is not the fault of the mixture, but of impromptu baristas and old machines, maligned and working too little – which means a bad espresso. And a bad memory of a dinner.
"The importance of coffee in the restaurant has increased exponentially and is a more sophisticated and versatile ingredient than it may seem" – explains "Il Mago ", aka chef Marcello Trentini of the Magorabin restaurant in Turin, a Michelin star – "As with all the other ingredients there has been continuous research and there is much more awareness on both sides, so much so that it is increasingly difficult to find customers who do not understand the difference between a good product and any one".

Nespresso Coffee Sommelier since four years, Trentini has a close relationship with this ingredient, and clear ideas. "Coffee is a pop ingredient in Italy, but it can not be cheap. Now it is clear: rather than eating a poor caviar, a very good onion better. Arabica or Robusta do not mean anything, flavor and aroma depend on the variety, the roasting, if it is in purity or is a blend … a universe of nuances and aromas that enrich your kitchen and your cultural baggage of cook, without prejudices. From Turin I can say that coffee is part of us, we are the inventors of Italian espresso. We have a very Turin-style, canonical approach to coffee, which is why I like to discover new horizons. For years I have dedicated at least one dish to a specific cultivar and I use it together with wine ".

Coffee and fish? It can be done

In the kitchen the coffee is used with meat: "Deer, lamb, chicken .. In Stockholm, at the end of the course to become Nespresso Coffee Sommelier, I used it together with fish. I cooked a fillet of white fish at low temperature in cooking oil with green apple cubes, shitake mushrooms, coffee reduction and coffee powder as pancakes over fish. Over the years I made a cod with coffee and a risotto with coffee: a real caffelatte, rice cooked in buffalo milk and creamed with peel and lemon juice and then served with a truffle of cocoa mass and coffee to be grated over it".

Not just wine: coffee as a pairing

You drink it, but not necessarily at the end of a meal. In a journey combined with the tasting menu, in addition to pairing with wine, other solutions are sought to balance the flavors with care, but also the alcoholic performance of the evening.
One of the historical dishes of the Magorabin card is Agnello / Nocciole, a leg of lamb in Lazio cooked at low temperature, then lightly smoked in a vacuum and burned in the barbecue. "It has a very crispy crust but keeps a pink flesh inside, the contrast is strong, and we serve it with a natural hazelnut cream. Simona (Beltrami, sommelier, partner and wife of the Magician) has studied for this dish two pairings, one alcoholic and one non-alcoholic coffee-based ".

Nicaragua Master Origin, in a drink

On the occasion of the launch of the new Nespresso Master Origin, the Magorabin maître, Alberto Bonanno, has created a cocktail with Nicaragua to combine with Contemporary financier with prawns, cauliflower and almonds of the chef. It is prepared starting from this unique coffee based on Arabica Black Honey, with aromas reminiscent of caramel, linden honey, grilled bread and gianduia chocolate. The coffee is cooled in a mixing glass with ice, stirring with a stirrer, drained, mixed with extra virgin olive oil of Nocellara del Belice 100%, and garnished with an orange twist and a sprig of thyme.

Accademia Vergnano, teach the art of coffee – Italian Cuisine

There is coffee and coffee, we know well, including blends, mono-origins, certifications. And there is the art of making coffee. Vergnano, the oldest Italian roasting company, has just opened one school. To teach all the secrets of the legendary Italian espresso (here the tips to make a moka scream at home).

On the hills of Turin, in the historic family villa – we are the fourth generation of this company – the bartenders of Italy and the professionals of the sector will be able to attend a high school for discovering the art of coffee in all its forms. Not only that: the Academy will be open to public and enthusiasts with meetings to discover and learn something more in this fascinating way from the color of the earth and the scent of Paradise! (and by the way: did you know that the correct consumption of coffee is good for the heart, mind and nervous system?!?)

The Academy of Chieri it is a return to the origins: it is the house where the company was founded by Domenico Vergnano (grandfather of the current owners) in 1882. A house that wants to show off thelove for excellence of the Vergnano family. But this is not at all the first school dedicated to baristas: the offices have in fact spread to Italy (10) and in the world (in seven countries).

The Vergnano Academy enjoys the international SCA certification – Specialty Coffee Association, which translated means this: the professionals who will come out of his school can become "Coffee sommelier". "In recent years we have noticed an ever increasing dedication: coffee is more than ever a subject that excites and stimulates baristas. There is an ever more evident will of specialize and become experts. – declares Enrico Vergnano, Director of Horeca Italia – we dream that in this place the best baristas will be formed ready to exalt our blends to the maximum. "

The course program it ranges from the fundamental "Barista Skill" to the most contemporary extraction and brewing techniques, from the techniques of milk art to the "sensory" modules for tasting. To these are added the broader courses in the bar world, such as cocktails & bar tenders, extracts and juices, aperitifs, management and food cost.

Caffè Vergnano exports to over 90 countries worldwide (and employs around 140 people). The meticulous selection of the best coffee producers in the world is a key to its success: "I chose to follow my father's job because I think it's a fascinating art – explains Pietro Vergnano, Responsible for the purchase of raw materials -" origins, define the roasting to get the best out of each grain and combine the spicy notes of Africa with those more floral patterns."

The Academy is part of the Polo Vergnano, an area dedicated to the culinary excellence of the Italian territory: on the courtyard overlook the restaurants of Eataly in Collina, Caffè Vergnano 1882 and roasting. Inside, a shop which sports professional equipment but also tasty gadgets for fans and a thematic bookstore in collaboration with Mondadori. And then of course the Practice Room (with Olfactory corner, Corner Mixology, Corner brewing etc); the Theoretical & Cupping Room and the Kitchen, to savor the culinary proposals of great chefs, in an intimate and warm atmosphere like the one at home.

Carra Traverso Saibante
November 2018