Tag: Sweet

Not the usual gateau: the sweet potato pie – Italian Cuisine

The potato gateau it is a dish that everyone likes, just everyone.
Would you like to try it in an "American style" version?
We use them sweet potatoes then.

Don't call it a gateau

The sweet potatoes are now available in all supermarkets and are prepared exactly like yellow potatoes, but they have a slightly sweeter taste and a very hard texture.
They should be cooked a little longer and are perfect for the preparation of savory dishes, but above all sweet.
We want to try using them to cook one potato pie a little revisited.
We will then add del tasty cheese to counter the sweetness of potatoes and then many herbs to give an aromatic touch. Are you curious to try?

Sweet potato pie recipe

First cook, starting from cold water, 500 g of potatoes peeled and cut into equal pieces.
Once soft mash with a fork or a potato masher.
They must become a puree, but you can also leave them a coarse p0 ′ for a more rustic version.
Then mix them with two small eggs or one large egg, a nut of butter, two spoons of parmesan, herbs mixed chopped with knife and bread crumbs just enough.
You can then decide whether to create a pie with a "cheesy" heart, or directly add the pieces of cheese in the mixture before baking.

But which cheese?

You can really choose what you prefer because with sweet potatoes everything is fine.
If you want a sharp contrast choose the feta which is super savory; if you want a tasty contrast choose the gorgonzola creamy and blue; if you want a delicate contrast choose the fontina which is also racy.
You can also add the mozzarella cheese, but remember to dry it very well first.

How to cook the pie

You can choose to serve the pie in portionsthen buttered aluminum molds, sprinkle them with breadcrumbs and then fill them, perhaps with the heart of cheese.
Once cooked at 200 ° for about 15 minutes portion them with a side dish of vegetables like Brussels sprouts which are a little bitter and perfect in contrast, or with leafy vegetables sauté in the pan.
If you want to prepare one instead single pan, in the same way butter it well, sprinkle it with the breadcrumbs and then fill it.
The surface of the pie must always be sprinkled with breadcrumbs mixed with Parmesan and before baking it is important to add a few flakes of butter that will melt during cooking and create a nice golden crust.

Browse the tutorial for more tips on preparing sweet potato pie

the sweet "smart" for the snack together – Italian Cuisine

An easy cake to prepare and that will conquer young and old. Why is it called so? Find out together with the recipe!

Now that the Christmas holidays and the coldest days of winter are approaching, you can take advantage of it to keep the kids busy, cooking delicious cakes for the snack for the Breakfast in family. An advice? There cake poured: quick and easy to prepare, with its soft consistency and its greedy filling, it is a genuine dessert, which usually knows how to conquer young and old.

Below, we report ingredients is method to make it at home, while in our gallery, you will find many practical advice to make it even more delicious.

How to make the spilled cake: the recipe

Ingredients

To prepare the poured cake, you need: 200 g of 00 flour, 4 eggs, 190 g of caster sugar, 100 ml of warm water, 90 ml of seed oil, 16 g of baking powder, 250 g of jam of strawberries (or any other taste) and the grated zest of 1 untreated lemon.

Method

With an electric mixer, begin to beat the eggs with sugar. When the mixture is well blended, add the lemon zest and water, then the oil flush, finally sifted flour and yeast, all while continuing to whip with the electric whisk. Preheat the oven 180 °, get a hinged cake pan lined with parchment paper, in which to transfer half of the mixture. Bake for 20 minutes. Now, spread the jam, leaving 1 cm from the edge, then cover with the remaining dough. Complete cooking for another 30 minutes. Check with a toothpick if the cake is cooked. Remove from the oven, let cool and serve, sprinkled with icing sugar.

Pie poured with ricotta and chocolate chips

The procedure for the dough is the basic one. While the first part of the dough is cooking in the oven, to stuff with ricotta and chocolate, proceed as follows: get 200 g of dry cow's milk ricotta, put it in a bowl and mix it with 50 g of sugar and 1 egg yolk. Get a homogeneous mixture, to which add 30 gr of dark chocolate drops. Now your filling is ready to fill the cake and complete the cooking.

Poured ricotta and pear cake

The combination of ricotta and pears is always an excellent idea. The procedure for obtaining the filling is the same as in the previous paragraph, except that in addition to the chocolate drops, 1 pear cut into very small chunks must also be added during the mixing phase.

Cake poured with cocoa and cream

The procedure is always the same, only that before placing it in the cake pan, you must add 2 tablespoons of bitter cocoa powder, in order to make it dark. For the cream, instead open a vanilla bean and remove the seeds. Then put 500 ml of whole milk on the fire, with the addition of the berry and the vanilla seeds. Do not boil it, filter it. Meanwhile, mix 100 grams of sugar with 50 grams of potato starch, adding the cooled milk slowly. Once all the milk has been added, pour the mixture into a saucepan and over low heat, let it thicken, to obtain a thick mixture, to be used as a filling for the poured cake.

Curls of almond, Iadduzzi and sweet couscous – Italian Cuisine

Since the panettone became traditional throughout Italy, some Sicilian Christmas sweets have ended up in the background: among these there are the almond Ricci, the Iadduzzi and the sweet Cous cous

What is the height for a Milanese who goes to Sicily looking for party sweets? Meeting in Licata, at the home of a 98 year old aunt who, at the end of dinner, offers you the "Panetùn"! I had landed in Catania with two good intentions: to visit the aunt and go hunting for the Sicilian Christmas sweets. Now that the panettone is on everyone's lips, the idea was to bring something "original" to Milan to amaze relatives and friends. The company proved to be more difficult than expected, given that the Milanese leavened has become traditional almost everywhere in Italy.

Ricci di mandorla, the flavor of a Sicily that no longer exists

The day my aunt made me find panettone on the table, I had come to her with a tray of Curly almond bought where legend wants them to be born: al monastery of the Most Holy Rosary of Palma di Montichiaro, the country of The Leopard. The Cloistered Benedictine nuns The ancient recipe for biscuits has also been handed down for centuries, also mentioned in the novel by Tomasi di Lampedusa. Sister Maria Nazarena has lived in this convent for over 60 years. There are only two other sisters left with her, who revive a piece of Sicily in flavors that no longer exists. Faced with my curiosity, he decides to reveal to me ingredients dei Ricci: Agrigento almonds, sugar, orange peel and eggs. THE tricks to get them, however, remain guarded, together with the cookbook, behind the bars from which the tray passes me. Or rather the trays. The desire is to try them all – the Ricci are not, in fact, the only ones. There are also the New pasta filled with orange preserve, the Soft nougat, the Real pasta cassatine with pistachio, the Martorana's fruit, the Shortbread donuts with almond. The list would continue. I stopped here. Notice: indecision, if you find yourself faced with such sweetness, will be maximum.

In Scicli it's not Christmas without Iadduzzi!

The second stop in search of Sicilian Christmas sweets was Scicli, in a bakery far from the baroque center. So out that, dodging the potholes along the way, there may be doubt that you are lost. The entrance is that of a two-story house. Overlooking the courtyard, the shop window of the La Fornarina bakery. It takes a while for Mrs. Carmela to show up. She is more curious than I am. What is a tourist doing here on December 6, her eyes eloquently ask? "I came to try your Iadduzzi." Answer: "Ah, don't you have panettone in Milan?" … Carmela explains to me that she still makes them by hand, one by one. That his children, with whom he runs the business, would like to quit because it takes so long, too much in a world where everything runs, even in Sicily. But she doesn't give up "because in Scicli it's not Christmas without Iadduzzi!", Some big biscuits whose name means "Roosters". In stuffed she puts "wildflower honey, almonds from our countryside, orange, cinnamon, no sugar". L'dough external is made with water and durum wheat flour, yeast and a little honey. Sweet at the right point, aromatic, fragrant and soft. You start with one and you don't know when you stop.

Sicilian Christmas sweets: there is also sweet couscous

The third and final stage of my glycemic mini-tour in Sicily was Agrigento, in an other monastery, that of Holy spirit. The building is located in the upper part of the city, you can get there from side streets and steep stairways, at the end of which you can guess it on the right for its tuff-colored grandeur. It's one in the afternoon. The church door is closed, but next to it there is another with a bell. Sound. A few minutes of waiting and the door looks out Sister Maria Gabriella. He did not expect this visit. «Nowadays, not many people come to pick up sweets from us, let alone tourists. Some families from Agrigento book them in advance, but today as today, panettone is the most popular. Here I came on purpose to try a specialty of the Cistercian nuns that over the centuries have followed in this monastery: the sweet cous cous, which seems to have Tunisian origins. Sister Maria Gabriella has been here for 20 years and together with her six sisters she has been preparing couscous in large terracotta pots with pistachios – strictly from Rafadali -, candied fruit, chocolate and many small secret delights. The other dessert for which the monastery is famous are the Real pasta shells in turn, filled with sweet couscous: an explosion of sweetness in the mouth. Sister Maria tells me that if I want sweets, she can send them to me in Milan. They also ship, just notify them in advance. I reply that this time, while I am here, I will take care of it, but that I will definitely show up for Easter.