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The recipe for the 3 Michelin star hazelnut cake – Italian Cuisine


A poor dish that has become an iconic recipe by chef Enrico Crippa. In its version, the best hazelnuts and many, many eggs, to be incorporated with a special technique. The result? Elegant, very soft and without a crumb

The hazelnut cake is one of those recipes so rooted in tradition that it has a Wikipedia page and one in the recipe books of all Piedmontese grandmothers. It was born as a peasant dish, a way to prepare a flourless Christmas cake, expensive at the time, using instead the leftovers of summer hazelnuts that were collected in the woods. Now it is a popular dessert, which is prepared at home as in a pastry shop, and where everyone adds their own secret touch: with or without flour? With or without yeast? Surely with hazelnuts, the famous Tonda Gentile Trilobata PGI, queen of the Langhe, considered by many to be the best in the world, so much so that it has made the fortune of the most important companies in Alba.

Making hazelnuts like wine: the Ceretto method

Right here in the most suitable area is born the Alba Hazelnut Cake signed by chef Enrico Crippa, Piedmontese by adoption, thanks to Ceretto family. The Ceretto are a well-known surname, for generations they have invested heavily in the territory, starting with wine and arriving at the collaboration with artists and designers who have brought their works to the area and made Alba an international crossroads. Part of this mission for beauty and goodness is Relanghe, the family confectionery company and, of course, the spearhead: the Piazza Duomo restaurant in Alba, which, thanks to the partnership established with chef Enrico Crippa, has obtained the 3 Michelin stars.
The Ceretto have been applying to hazelnut cultivation Tonda Gentile Trilobata PGI the methods already used for their excellent vineyards. The selection is rigorous and many of the steps remain handmade. Finally, roasting is the most important moment, since it can ruin all the work done: the temperature is precisely calibrated and the hazelnuts are put in constant motion, making sure that none of them break. The result of the work is a delicate but unmistakable hazelnut, with an intense aroma, which goes rancid in much longer times than the others.

The hazelnut cake, from a non-Piedmontese

Enrico Crippa, born in Brianza, he was trained first by Marchesi and then in Japan, he met the Ceretto family in 2005 who were looking for a strong chef who could lead them to their goal and embrace their philosophy and devotion to these lands. Today Crippa's award-winning cuisine is based on the control of the supply chain and the study of the crops, which he practices in his garden and greenhouse, now legendary, and which are the basis of the scrupulous research of each raw material. "The challenge was to interpret one of the most famous and traditional desserts, the one that every Piedmontese woman creates and handed down from generation to generation", says Crippa who has chosen to create own version of the hazelnut cake as a gift. "It was love at first sight and my recipe is meant to be a tribute to the hazelnut of the Langhe and at the same time a symbol of the city of Alba".

The super soft recipe

Remaining absolutely faithful to tradition, the recipe of Alba Hazelnut Cake designed by Crippa for Relanghe changes some typical characteristics of homemade hazelnut cake such as excessive friability and general dryness, which makes you need at least a glass of milk to be able to swallow it. He succeeded in making the dough absorb many more eggs compared to the common version (pay attention to the crucial passage explained in the text). The result is a soft and tasty dessert, totally devoid of flour and able to fully express the flavor of the delicate Piedmontese hazelnut. So elegant to be served as a dessert with a glass of Muscat or a coffee. Theirs is on sale on the online shop and in the best wine shops and shops, together with the basic ingredients by Relanghe. But here is the exclusive recipe to do it again at home.

Ingredients for two 24cm molds

100 g Piedmont hazelnut paste I.G.P.
200 g Piedmont hazelnut flour I.G.P
200 g grains of Piedmont hazelnuts I.G.P.
300 g butter
180 g sugar
14 eggs
1 sachet of baking powder

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Separate the yolks from the whites.
Whip the soft butter with 140 g sugar and the hazelnut paste.
This is the crucial step: gently add the egg yolks, one at a time, until they are completely absorbed.
Once done, add the sifted hazelnut flour, when this is incorporated add the chopped hazelnuts and the sachet of leavening powder.
Start whipping the egg whites, add the remaining sugar, finish whipping until stiff.
Gently mix the egg whites with the rest of the dough, taking care to leave the mixture well whipped.
Arrange everything in greased and floured cake pans. Place in the oven and lower the oven temperature to 170 °, let it cook for 40 minutes. Allow to cool before serving.

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Text Margo Schachter, Jacopo Giavara

How to cook a perfect 3 Michelin star Toast – Italian Cuisine

How to cook a perfect 3 Michelin star Toast


Homemade, from brioche bread to artisan cooked ham: simple but ambitious

What you need for 1 brioche bread
375 g of flour 0
140 g of butter
125 g of Manitoba flour
125 g of egg yolks
75 g of eggs
25 g of sugar
15 g of salt
5 g of dry yeast

What you need to fill the toast: caciocavallo, artisan cooked ham

For the brioche (2-liter loaf tin)
Collect all the ingredients in 100 g of water in the planetary mixer, leaving the butter and salt aside. Knead until a homogeneous consistency, then add salt and butter and continue to work until the dough is smooth and compact and comes off the edge of the bowl (well strung). Put it to rise in a covered container for about 2 hours at 26 ° C (the volume must double). Finally, obtain a 750-800 g loaf and arrange it in the mold; let it rise for about 1 hour at 26 ° C. 5. Cook it at 180 ° C for about 40 minutes. Remove the brioche from the mold and let it cool.

To fill the toast
For each toast, cut 2 slices of brioche bread 1.5 cm thick. On one slice place the finely cut cooked ham, on the other two thin slices of fresh caciocavallo.
Bake at 170 ° C for 6 minutes. 7-8. Then close the toast and toast it in a pan for 2 minutes per side. Serve immediately, hot.

For the ham
Prepare the ham yourself, following our director-cook Niko Romito: chop rosemary, sage, thyme, marjoram (10 g of each herb). Season 1 kg of capocollo with 14 g of salt and the chopped herbs, wrap it in aluminum foil and cook in the oven at 68 ° C for 12 hours. Finally, take it out of the oven, let it cool and remove the aluminum wrapping. Cover it with plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge.

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Marco Sacco, how to become a two Michelin star again (thanks to the lockdown) – Italian Cuisine

Marco Sacco, how to become a two Michelin star again (thanks to the lockdown)


A bistro where weddings were held, a boat for picnics, a different menu for gourmet. The Piccolo Lago in Mergozzo is a good example of how good chefs and patrons are reacting to post-Covid-19 problems

The Little Lake of Mergozzo (VB) is not the only (bi) starred restaurant that presented itself at the reopening in a different guise. From the Alps to Sicily, it is a flourishing of temporary for the summer or of places where the people have moved city ​​cooks. However, the transformation of Marco Sacco's restaurant impressed us particularly, starting from the history of the chef-patron, who grew up between the family restaurant and the important experiences in France. Great traveler (and excellent windsurfer in his youth), but fiercely attached to his territory, and perhaps for this reason underestimated by critics. The paradox wants that the moment Sacco started to go out home – with the management of Floor 35 in the Intesa Sanpaolo skyscraper in Turin and the opening of Castellana Restaurant in Hong Kong – the hit of Covid-19 has arrived. That applies to all his colleagues, but in a culinary frontier post such as Mergozzo (closer to Switzerland than to Milan or Turin) the recovery is more difficult. It takes passion, courage and the desire to reinvent yourself. Going back to the ancient, to see the future.

A small beach on the lake

«Without rhetoric, rest led me to think that this splendid work must always be done and in any case knowing how to have fun, through a tranquility in taking on the commitments and efforts of daily work, says Sacco. And here is the transformation of the garden below the suspended structure of the steak: practically a small beach, open from 10 in the morning where you can relax in the garden, have lunch in the middle of nature, sunbathe, enjoy a gourmet snack and a very fresh ice cream or choose the moment of the aperitif or an after-dinner, since – except on Sundays – it is also open a lounge bar from 19.30 to 22.00. All in front of the waters of the cleanest pre-Alpine lake in Europe, where you can sail only by sailing, paddling or using an electric propulsion hull. Speaking of the lake, an original boat picnic was also created, which allows you to explore Marco Sacco's water and kitchen in three hours. Because together with a box with everything you need for lunch or dinner (including water and wine), there is a map of the lake with the itinerary to follow and what to eat, step by step. More distancing than that!

Five boxes in the bistro

And then there is the kitchen. Il Piccolo Lago gourmet is alive (and fight with us), but only for dinner, from Wednesday to Sunday: two tasting, innovative and historic, at 150 euro plus a 70 euro pairing. A security between present and past, where technology is at the service of the raw material that is often sought directly by the chef. The bistro has fun. "We in the kitchen first: the boys realized it when I forbade the vacuum and the surrounding area for the menu," says the chef. "I focused on Italian spirit and simplicity, thinking about the environment and what customers can look for in such a space, especially at the weekend." Attention to the concept of simplicity: it is apparent precisely because the but no it is of an expert cook, steak, open-minded. This is how dishes like the Caprese, lo Spaghettone with tomato, Vitello tonnato, the Mixed fried lake, the Grissinopoli (a cutlet breaded in breadsticks) are enjoyed. You can choose from five boxes where the individual courses cost 6, 10, 14, 22 and 26 euros. «The watchword is not to upset, deny, rethink your own idea of ​​cooking and your own style, but to open up to new customers or offer other faithful ones other moments to sit at the table: this is the time to do it, with passion and seriousness says Sacco.

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