Tag: Cake

Gluten-free Pasqualina cake: the recipe – Italian Cuisine

A classic of Easter lunch or Easter Monday picnic, revisited in a gluten free version

Just a few tricks are needed to make celiac-proof one of the inevitable dishes on the Easter menu: the Pasqualina cake, a Ligurian specialty now widespread on tables throughout Italy. Traditional pasta preparation requires some patience, especially if you use gluten-free flours; as always, some precautions should be followed. Starting from the choice of flour: the are ideal bread mixes. And then the preparation of the sheets, which must be thin. Finally the oven, strictly hot. Who does not have time or desire to devote himself to the homemade preparation of the gluten-free Pasqualina cake, can use a roll of gluten-free pasta sheet and focus on the filling: the result will still be excellent.

The recipe for the gluten-free Pasqualina cake

Here are the ingredients and the procedure for preparing the gluten-free Easter cake.

Ingredients

For pasta
00 g of gluten-free flour
extra virgin olive oil
salt

For the stuffing
250 g of peeled spinach
250 g of peeled chard
1/2 onion
10 g of dried mushrooms
6 eggs
30 g of grated parmesan
200 g of cottage cheese
fresh marjoram
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper

Method

For the stuffing
Boil the vegetables in a little salted water, drain them, squeeze them and mince them. Brown the chopped onion with the mushrooms in a drizzle of oil, previously soaked and squeezed. Add the chard and spinach and leave to flavor for a few minutes; let it cool. Beat 2 eggs with parmesan, add the ricotta, then add everything to the warm vegetables; salt, season with the chopped marjoram and mix.

For pasta
Place the flour on the pastry board; in the center pour 2 tablespoons of oil and a pinch of salt, then start working, adding little by little as much water as needed to obtain a soft paste (about a glass). Continue to knead for 5 minutes, then divide the dough into 8 pieces. Roll them out into 8 very thin sheets, large enough to line a 20 cm diameter round mold.

Grease the mold with oil, arrange a sheet of dough, brush it with other oil and overlap another sheet: continue in this way with half of the sheets.

Grease the surface of the last sheet, pour the filling, level it and, with the back of a spoon, form 4 notches at a regular distance. Pour an egg into each hollow, salt and pepper it, then overlap a sheet of pasta, brush it with oil and continue overlapping the greased sheets of oil until they are finished.

Fold the excess pasta back inward and seal the edge by pressing with the prongs of a fork. Grease the surface of the cake, prick it with a fork and bake at 200 ° C for 45 minutes or until it is golden brown. Let the cake cool before serving.

Easter cake recipe from Liguria – Italian Cuisine

Ingredients For the pastry

1 kg flour
salt
extra virgin olive oil

Ingredients For the filling

1 kg chard
400 g ricotta
110 g Grated Parmigiano Reggiano Dop
8 pcs small eggs
1 pc onion
1 pc clove of garlic
marjoram
flour
extra virgin olive oil
bread crumbs
salt
pepper

Duration: 3 h 15 min

Level: For experts

Dose: 8 people

For the recipe for the Easter cake from Liguria, dissolve a nice pinch of salt in 600-650 g of warm water. Knead the flour with warm water and 2 tablespoons of oil, working the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Divide it into 18 loaves: 8 of 120 g each and 10 of 70 g each. Cover them and let them rest for 1 hour.
FOR THE FILLING: Clean the beets, cut them into small pieces and cook them in a pan with 2 tablespoons of oil, the garlic crushed with the peel, the chopped onion and a couple of spoons of water for about 5 minutes. Remove the garlic, salt them, squeeze them very well and chop them. Mix them with 2 eggs, 80 g of grated Parmesan and chopped leaves of 2 marjoram sprigs. Mix the ricotta with 2 tablespoons of flour, 2 tablespoons of oil and 20 g of grated Parmesan; season with salt and pepper.
FOR THE COMPOSITION: Grease the work surface and roll out a 120 g stick with a rolling pin, obtaining a sheet of mm thick; grease it on the surface and cover it with a cake pan overflowing the dough by a few centimeters. Repeat the operation by overlapping the other 7 loaves of 120 g, spread out in sheets.
Sprinkle the surface of the last sheet of pasta with a little breadcrumbs and spread over the filling
of chard, then the seasoned ricotta. Form 6 hollows in the ricotta layer with the bottom of a spoon and lay the eggs gently peeling them; remove a little egg white if it overflows. Spread 1 tablespoon of grated Parmesan over ricotta and eggs. Roll out the smaller dough loaves, as you did for the large ones; place them gradually on the cake, making the pasta spill over and blowing a little air between one layer and another. Cut out the pasta, keeping a border of 2-3 cm; roll it on itself, to close the cake. Oil the surface of the cake and bake it at 180 ° C for about 1 hour. Serve it at room temperature.

Chocolate cake without butter and without eggs – Italian Cuisine

The eggless cake is undoubtedly one of the most sought after desserts these days but it is also a dessert that I love very much, because it is easy, good, but also light. Can we say less calorie? I know we don't like it dieting in fact I'm going to tell you how to make a delicious chocolate cake, but this cake without eggs but also without butter we can still call it a light cake.

The basic dough of the cake without eggs and without butter lends itself to many variations, this you see is chocolate but you can really indulge both in the ingredients and in the aromas: for example you can replace the 00 flour with a rice flour, or replace one start with almond flour, use vanillin, orange peel and so on.

Cake without butter and egg base dough

Ingredients (for a cake with a 20 cm mold)

350 g of 00 flour
150 g of sugar
250 g of milk
60 g of sunflower oil
16 g of baking powder (or 10 g of baking soda, or 16 g of cream of tartar)
lemon peel
1 pinch of salt (if you put baking soda do not put salt)

Mix the sifted flour and baking powder. Add the sugar and the grated lemon peel. Then separately mix milk with oil. Finally pour the liquids into the flour, mixing very well and without making lumps (just a fork but if you have a whisk better).
If it seems too solid, add a couple of spoons of milk.
Put in a mold with parchment paper and turn on the oven at 180 °. Bake for the first 20 minutes in the oven at 180 °, then lower to 170 ° and cook for another 40 minutes.

Tips
Do not open the oven for the first 20/30 minutes to check if the cake is growing because the change in temperature would immediately make it sag.
Pie from the oven should be left to cool for 15 minutes and then eaten.
If you have to keep it, put it inside the film so as not to dry it.

Chocolate cake without butter and without eggs

175 g of 00 flour
75 g of bitter cocoa powder
150 g of sugar
250 g of milk
60 g of sunflower oil
16 g of baking powder (or 10 g of baking soda, or 16 g of cream of tartar)
lemon peel
1 pinch of salt (if you put baking soda do not put salt)
50 g chocolate chips

The procedure is the same, mix the dry components (in this case flour, yeast and cocoa) and then the liquid ones. Add the liquids to the flour, the lemon peel (here the orange peel is very good) and only when everything is well blended adding the chocolate chips.

Tips
Flour the chocolate chips before putting them in the dough so they will not fall to the bottom.
Add only half of the drops and the other half put it on top of the cake, always before baking.