They have never heard of English soup in London, but in Emilia Romagna it is the most typical dessert and together with tortellini and wraps it is part of the identity of a whole reason. The paternity is contended between Ferrara and Florence, where either an English nanny or a cook from the Estense family would have reproduced a trifle with what was found for the hands, that is, cream and biscuits. Both Artusi and modern historians have dealt with it without getting to grips with it yet, a sign that cooking is the result of influences, evolutions, intuitions, and that looking for "the first version" of such ancient stories is really difficult. What matters is the result: you eat it at home and in the restaurant and even if there is no codified "original recipe", everyone would agree in saying that it is a layered spoon cake, made of sponge cake (or ladyfingers, it doesn't matter) , interspersed with custard, chocolate cream, and embellished with a beautiful red color. The credit goes to alchermes, a typical Italian liqueur that colors many typical sweets, but which not everyone likes and always excludes the little ones from the party. That's why our version has one fruit reduction – and obviously layers of creamy Nutella® .

To interpret the trifle we have chosen Catherine and Lorenzo, Belgian and Bolognese by adoption she, Bolognese doc he, perfect interpreters of what tradition means today. Rezdora and the artistic son of a family of sfogline, Lorenzo met his future wife at university and together they made their grandmother's pasta factory evolve into a modern restaurant business with two locations in Bologna and Casalecchio di Reno. the way to pass on the tradition of fresh pasta with a contemporary format, before this knowledge was lost forever and meeting the new generations. With us they did the same thing with the trifle.

They usually eat trifle every Christmas, but their father-in-law prepares it (because Catherine just doesn't like to make it): this time she accepted the challenge and prepared it for us. Will he have beaten the master?

English soup with Nutella ®

For 10 single-portion glasses of 100g

For the sponge cake
2 large eggs
30 g flour
30 g potato starch
60 g sugar
vanilla 1⁄2 pod

For the custard
400g milk
100 g fresh cream
4 yolks
25 g cornstarch
40 g sugar
1 vanilla pod

For the red reduction
100 g of water
80 g raspberries or orange pulp
50 g sugar
150 g Nutella® chopped hazelnuts to taste

Method
In a saucepan, cook 100 g of water, raspberries and sugar until the fruit is well wilted and cooked, filter and cool – set aside a couple of raspberries for the final decoration.
Pour the eggs at room temperature. In a bowl and beat them with whips while pouring the sugar a little at a time. Work for about ten minutes or until the mixture becomes light and fluffy.
Then place a colander in the bowl and pour the flour and potato starch into it. Incorporate the powders into the dough by making gentle movements from the bottom up and making sure that no residues remain on the bottom of the bowl. Pour the dough into a previously greased and floured 18 cm mold or onto a baking sheet with parchment paper, bake in a preheated oven, in static mode at 170 ° for 20/25 min.

For the cream, pour milk and cream into a saucepan, remove the vanilla seeds, keeping them aside from the pod and pour the latter into the saucepan. Warm up, letting it just touch the boil. Meanwhile, pour the vanilla pulp over the egg yolks, add the sugar, beat quickly and then sift the corn starch. Stir and at this point the milk and cream should be hot, then discard the pod and pour a couple of ladles into the egg mixture to dilute it. Then pour into the pan and mix with a whisk while cooking for a few minutes. As soon as the cream thickens you can turn off the flame.

Retrieve the ready and cooled sponge cake, use 70 g of it, cut it with a pasta bowl of the size of the glasses you have available, or alternatively into vertical slices 1 cm thick, trimming so that the pieces can fit into glasses of about 150 ml capacity . Brush the sponge cake on both sides and edges with the raspberry sauce.

Now start composing the trifle alternating the layers with the following sequence from the bottom: sponge cake, Nutella ®, cream, sponge cake, Nutella®, cream and finally sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts. Complete the trifle with the addition of a couple of fresh raspberries.

Credits:
Protagonists: Catherine Vancaenegen and Lorenzo Scandellari
Production house: MIA production
Executive producer: Vanessa Valerio – Luca Caliri Directed by: Alberto Cozzutto
Food stylist: Elisa Lanci