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Panforte translates as strong bread, though this creation is in fact a festive sweet thing to eat after a meal. Historically it was known as Siena cake as the Italian city is thought to have been the first to embrace cooking with sugar and spices such as white pepper.
Adding chocolate is a more recent variation, but even so it still retains its medieval flavour. If you think you or your recipient might prefer to eat the panforte with Parmesan (the Italian equivalent of our Christmas cake enjoyed with stilton), it’s best to leave out the cocoa. I like to give them as presents in little wooden boxes.
Timings
Prep time: 30 minutes, plus cooling
Cook time: 40 minutes
Makes
two 12cm cakes
Ingredients
- 2-3 A4 sheets of rice paper
- 110g hazelnuts
- 110g whole almonds
- 125g candied mixed peel, preferably the chunky Italian style, chopped
- 100g candied pineapple, chopped into ⅓cm pieces
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- 75g plain flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground coriander
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- pinch of white pepper
- 15g good-quality cocoa powder
- 150g caster sugar
- 120g clear honey
- 50g unsalted butter
- icing sugar, to finish
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