Easter Chocolate Nest

It's Easter !  An excellent  tradition in our Northern Italan family is a chocolate dessert, also perfect in Tuscany

Nido Pasquale al Cioccolato

200 gr. white flour

150 gr sugar

100 g butter, softened

2 eggs

150 ml milk

1 teaspoon baking vanilla

grated zest of lemon

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 pinch of salt

chocolate

chocolate chips

apricot jam

small chocolate  eggs

Mix sugar, butter, add all the other ingredients. Pour into a mold donut. Bake at 180 ° C for 40 minutes.

Let  it cool. Cover with a thin layer of jam and then let stick coarsely grated  chocolate and  chocolate chips. Garnish with small chocolate eggs in the middle.

How to prepare an easy Italian Christmas dessert

Today we want to offer a nice idea for an easy and quick Italian Christmas dessert :

Albero di Natale

A Pandoro Christmas- Tree shaped:

Buy a Pandoro (it cannot be prepared properly in a normal family oven).

Slice it large side. Rebuild it turning the layers to shape a tree.

Decorate with whipped cream ,pomegranate or colourful decoration, such as those little round coloured chocolate everybody knows .

Tuscan Week Menu

An idea for a Tuscan menu from Toscana Mia cooking classes last week


Apetizer/Starter  Antipasto

Black Olives Crostini  
Crostini alle Olive Nere

http://toscanamiacooking.blogspot.it/2011/12/italian-black-olives-apetizer.html

First course Primo Pasta

Tuscan Spaghetti with  Garlic and Cherry Tomatoes  
                           Pici all' Aglione 

http://toscanamiacooking.blogspot.it/2011/12/how-to-make-pici.html

http://toscanamiacooking.blogspot.it/2011/12/cherry-tomatoes-garlic-sauce.html

Second Course  Secondo 
Balsamic Vinegar Scaloppine Scaloppine all' Aceto Balsamico

http://toscanamiacooking.blogspot.it/2012/03/scaloppine-balsamic-for-poultry-day.html

Contorno
Beans Tuscan Way   Fagioli al Fiasco

http://toscanamiacooking.blogspot.it/2009/01/cooking-cookery-typical-tuscan-cooking.html

Dessert  Dolce 
Panna Cotta with Chocolate and Safron Panna Cotta con Cioccolato e Zafferano

http://toscanamiacooking.blogspot.it/2009/10/panna-cotta-in-tuscany.html 

Black Olives crostini

Pici with Garlic and Cherry Tomatoes

Fagioli al Fiasco

Pici all' Aglione

balsamic Vinegar with Beans

Panna Cotta with chocolate

Panna Cotta with Safron and Chocolate

Mother's Day : Chocolate with Cherries

Today  the girls wanted to cook for Mother’s Day something special but …not too difficult:

They arranged the still empty cups on a tray and filled with  drained  Fabbri cherries .

They poured  Kroccant Fabbri on them , placed the tray in the freezer for 10 minutes, removed the tray from the freezer ... Chocolates were ready to be served! 

Alternatively, you can prepare chocolate Fabbri cherries  melting the  chocolate in a double boiler or add some  chopped almonds or nuts to the cherries.

Thank you girls !

Tuscan Zuppa Inglese Dessert

Zuppa Inglese , is an Italian dessert  with a variety of composition it should not come as a surprise that many regions of Italy claim to be its progenitor. The so-called classic Zuppa Inglese includes layers of Pan di Spagna or lady finger, soaked in Alkermes liqueur and alternated layers of simple custard (crema pasticciera). 

According to an unproven tradition, it was created in Ferrara, a town near Bologna, during the 16th century, at the Court of the Lords of Este. 

 According to a Tuscan gastronome, zuppa inglese instead was born in the hills surrounding Florence, “invented” by a maid working for an English family. It was a way to recycle the left over biscuits used for tea or Port. 

These variations were rather common and, in fact, in Italy there are  different versions of the sweet. In theory every cook can invent a variation In Naples they substitute the custard with ricotta cheese 

ZUPPA INGLESE

Approx. 120g sponge (lady) fingers

1 glass alkermes (or kasis or red kirsch)

6 egg yolks

6 spoonfuls of sugar

5 spoonfuls of flour

1 spoonful of potato starch

1l of milk

1 vanilla bean

100 gr. bitter cooking chocolate

Boil the milk, flavoured with the vanilla.

Beat the egg yolks to a froth with the sugar. Add the flour and the starch.  

Then add the boiled milk, taking the vanilla bean out. 

Let the mixture thicken over a low heat, mixing continuously, until you have a cream. 

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.

Divide the cream into two bowls. Add the melted cooking chocolate to half of the cream.

 Leave the creams to cool. 

Pour a glass of alkermes in a  bowl and add a glass of water. 

Place a layer of sponge fingers soaked in alkermes in a glass bowl and cover with a layer of the yellow cream. 

Place another layer of sponge fingers soaked in alkermes on top and cover with the chocolate cream. Decorate as you please. Place the dessert in the refrigerator, in the least cold part.

Italian Chocolate Gelato

The chorus of the song from the 80s, presented by the Tuscan Pupo, still occasionally plays in the ear

“Gelato al cioccolato

dolce e un po' salato

tu gelato al cioccolato

un bacio al cioccolato

io te l'ho rubato……..”

"Chocolate ice cream

sweet and a little 'salty

you chocolate ice cream

a chocolate kiss

I've stolen from you ........

CHOCOLATE GELATO 

100 gr. dark chocolate

1 egg

200 gr. sugar

250 gr.  whipping cream

250 gr. milk

Half a vanilla bean

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler with a little milk, flavor with vanilla.

Leave to  cool.

Beat the egg with the sugar, dilute with milk, cream and melted chocolate.

Prepare the gelato.

Saint Valentine's Cake

A cake with ricotta cheese and chocolate and a large heart to celebrate Saint Valentin

CROSTATA DI RICOTTA

For the shortcrust pastry:     

• 300g flour                             
• 150g butter                            
• 150g sugar                            
• 2 egg yolks                           
• 1 egg                                     
• a pinch of salt                                     
• a pinch of cinnamon

For the cream:

•  400 gr Ricotta cheese
• 150 gr  sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 yolks
• 50g sultanas or 2 ebs. cocoa powder 
• 2 tbs. rhum or cognac 

Prepare the shortcrust  pastry: mix the butter and the sugar  then pour in the flour.

Add the egg yolks ,the egg , the cinnamon and the salt. Knead quickly. 

Form the dough into a ball and leave aside for one hour. 

Then,roll out 2/3 of the pastry and line the cake mold with it.

Place in a  preheated oven at 180 - 200 °C and bake for approximately 10  minutes. .

Meanwhile prepare the cream:mix the ricotta cheese with sugar,add the eggs, yolks and sultanas and rhum. 

Then pour it on the shortcrust pastry. Level  the surface .   

Use the remaining pastry for decorating the cake. 

Then cook in the oven for 20 minutes at 180°C

….AL CIOCCOLATO  add two tablespoons cocoa powder to the ricotta cheese

Let us Prepare for Holidays Step 4

The “tronchetto di Natale “ takes the form of  the block of wood, symbolizing Christmas. The wood was taken from the thickest part of the tree and kept waiting for Christmas Eve, when it was placed in the fireplace to heat symbolically Infant Jesus

The wood was burning up the New Year, so it was generally extracted from fruit trees such as oak or chestnut, which ensured a slow combustion, and the whole tradition has its origins in ancient pagan custom of propitiating, through this rite, the fertility of all the fruit trees.

Tronchetto di Natale

Prepare the cookie dough on a baking pan 40 x 35 cm.

Prepare the custard by adding the sifted cocoa powder and let it cool.

Stuff the roll of cookie dough, spreading the cream over the entire surface but leaving a few cm gap at the edgesCarefully roll up the cake, wrap it with greaseproof paper and place in refrigerator to cool at least an hour.

Meanwhile, prepare the ganache cream.
When the roll has cooled down and compacted, remove the parchment paper and place them plays  on a serving  plate , cut across the two ends of the roll, and set them aside: with cream ganache completely cover the cake (except the underside!) and then join the two ends of the cream previously cut, and laid one on top of the cake and the other side, to give the characteristic shape of the piece of wood.

 The parts cut opposite to the  diagonally cut   must join  the trunk

Cover with cream ganache  the side surfaces of the parts that have just attacked and leave  visible the diagonal sides cut in the shape of spirals, which represent the cut section of the trunk of a tree .
Now, with a fork,  practice lines on the cream from one end to the other , to simulate the bark of the trunk.