Tag: Massari

Tette delle Monache, the recipe by Iginio Massari – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

You have heard of the traditional dessert Nuns Tits and would you like to try cooking it at home? We turned to the Maestro from Brescia Iginio Massari for the recipe – foolproof and fantastic, of course.

The most famous Italian pastry chef in the world and a recurring nightmare for the competitors of MasterChef of each edition, Iginio Massari he is undoubtedly an excellence and an authority on Italian cuisine. This is why his recipes are also among the most replicated, not only on TV. Reached by phone, the teacher explained to us that of Nuns Tits, a dessert with a curious name and origins that are still not very certain. Before discovering the recipe for the dessert suggested by the master, let’s delve into the origins of the name.

Nuns’ boobs: why are they called that?

Also known as Apulian sighs or Three mountains (in Abruzzo), the Tette delle Nuns have a history that is still unclear, but certainly curious and at times compelling. Among the hypotheses there is one that assigns the origin of the dessert to Altamura, in the Bari area (known to most for the production of bread). The name is given by the shape that closely resembles a woman’s breast. But what do nuns have to do with it? Again according to tradition, the dessert seems to have often been prepared by the nuns of the monastery of Santa Chiara in Altamura. Then reading the volume Le Sise de Mòneche by professor Mario Palmerio, the denomination sees three explanatory hypotheses: the first is that according to which the original diction would be three mountains, in reference to the actual mountainousness of the Italian districts. The story goes that the poet Modesto della Porta, observing the whiter-than-usual pastries, exclaimed: «Madonna, how white and straight and pointed they are, they seem like “sise de mòneche” to me. A second hypothesis refers to another story, that of a nun who, to camouflage the shape of her body, added fabric between her two breasts in order to flatten them. Hence the secular fantasy about the existence of three breasts. For the third and final hypothesis, the most “hasty”, the “sise delle nuns” are so called because they are a dessert invented by the nuns.

But let’s see how the Tette delle Monache are prepared following the recipe of the master Iginio Massari, a somewhat narrative recipe as we reached him on the phone, after one of his work commitments – between one panettone and another, but this time not on a cruise! The maestro proved to be very helpful and, despite his tough presence on TV, also quite witty.

The recipe for Iginio Massari’s Tette delle Monache

Ingredients

100 g egg white
100 g egg yolks
100 g sugar
50 g flour
50 g starch
1 vanilla pod

For the custard

Iginio Massari advises: «For the custard, do it as you are used to making it. We put the recipe for ours below.

There is something that unites the deliciousness of a fruit tart with that of a cannon: custard! Find out how to prepare it with our recipe

Go to the recipe

Method

Start whipping the egg whites, which have a structuring function.
Then the egg yolks, with their emollient function, with the sugar.
Add the vanilla.
Then sift the two flours and combine the two mixtures using a spatula and moving it from top to bottom.
Make small hemispheres and place them on a baking tray with a piping bag using the smooth nozzle no. 10.
Bake at 200° and wait until the “tits” are uniformly golden; usually, but it depends on the oven, they will be ready after 8-9 minutes.
Once cooled, create a central hole and add the slightly “firm” custard using the piping bag.
For the icing, use melted sugar at 38° and icing the “tits”.
Finally, add half a candied cherry on top, take it and… eat it!

Time of realization? Massari replies: «It takes me 20 minutes but, if you have never prepared it, consider an hour.

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Does panettone win over pandoro? Iginio Massari and 7 great pastry chefs respond – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

Panettone versus Pandoro, the usual rivalry on the Christmas table that occurs every year – but really? I asked the question to Iginio Massari and 6 other pastry chefs exceptional on the occasion of the Panettone Senza Confini 2023 cruise. It was definitely the ideal opportunity to carry forward the flag of the Verona dessert, which seems to be too often put aside. Yet, just as often I find friends and relatives confessing that they love panettone “without” (gluten, candied fruit, raisins, depending), but that deep down they much prefer pandoro. What is certain is that the offer of artisanal panettone is very strong and the competition is therefore heavy to overcome. Yet, I say it here and you will remember my words, there is room for Pandoro to regain first place.

Iginio Massari as well as Achille Zoiafor example, are great Masters of festive leavened products and they too reserve a special place in their gourmet hearts for pandoro. Fausto Morabito, the inventor of the traveling Panettone Senza Confini event, now in its seventh edition, is willing to welcome the pandoro on the next cruise ship. In short, the pandoro trend is strong and there are all the cards to play for a winning game.

Pandoro VS Panettone: the data

According to data from Italian Food Union, last year the total production of the two leavened products was 73,502 tons equal to 552.1 million euros. According to the survey conducted by AstraRicerche according to Unione Italiana Food, in the last year over 95% have eaten at least one of the two. When it comes to consumer preferences, you come to find that the two are almost neck and neck: 81% for panettone and 82% for pandoro. It is adults who prefer panettone, while the new generations prefer pandoro. Furthermore, the preference for the traditional pandoro recipe is almost evident at 69.3% compared to 66% for panettone.

Here’s what Iginio Massari and the other 6 pastry chefs think

The new challenges of Iginio Massari – Italian Cuisine

The best pastry chef in Italy and his two sons Debora and Nicola, the innovative generation of the family, faced this particular year with courageous initiatives. Guests at the Master Management in Catering at the 24ORE Business School tell it

Three pastry shops in the red zone, now yellow, then who knows, the eshop open, the delivery, the charities and now the opening of a new store in Verona. Iginio Massari, always accompanied by his family, he certainly did not stop in these complicated months.
"Our goal was to open in May – the most famous pastry chef in Italy told us yesterday – Then there was a confusion, but we did not lose the goal of being successful with Verona, a very open city. We always aim to take people by the throat "A goal that is not difficult in terms of intent, nor in its intrinsic greed, but certainly for the period.

The world of catering is perhaps the one that is paying the most for the effects of the covid and Massari knows it well but this has made him even more determined.
Because yes, Massari's history is made up of determination and iron discipline and his reputation as an irreproachable chef precedes him.

But perhaps in this way we can face a global pandemic and all the uncertainty of the future, with solid foundations, a deep respect for the customer and a constant idea of progress: do not stop, but move forward always trying to keep up with the innovation and with the changing world. This is how a temporary store in Rome was born, the eshop, which we mentioned earlier, which in 2020 collected 400% more orders than the previous year, and in which the waiters and bartenders from Brescia who had closed activities were involved, but also the research on sustainable plastic free packaging and the inevitable innovations in the production, always artisanal, of the whole family: like the mousse dedicated to Verona, a stratospheric delight to turn the page and arrive in 2021.