There’s a special recipe for you today. Today is the Italian National Day, Festa della Repubblica, or Republic Day. Sixty-eight years ago, Italy officially became a republic. Although it’s public holiday in Italy, it’s obviously not in the UK, so I went to work as usual. But tonight I’ll have a mini personal celebration for the occasion. And shovel some very Italian sweets into my face, as one does.
I was saying yesterday that I’ve been reading through really old Italian cookbooks. Well, whilst exploring among dozens recipes calling for obscure ingredients like “odour of vanilla” and Crataegus azarolus, whatever fruit that is, I also came across this really cool book written in 1891 by Pellegrino Artusi, who, Wikipedia informs me, was “an Italian businessman and writer, best known as the author of the cookbook La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Fine dining)”. So, three hours spent on Google Books later, I got crazy excited about this whole vintage Italian recipe thing. The cookbook is brilliant in all ways – amazing recipes even to modern standards and the best writing ever (I mean, Jam Roly-poly renamed “English sausage”. Ha). Interestingly enough, 90% of cake and pudding recipes use ground almonds, which make them either gluten-free or easily gluten-free-able (!). And even though most of them call for shocking amounts of eggs, the recipe I’ve chosen is not only gluten-free, but also surprisingly (and definitely accidentally) vegan. The original uses a cherry liqueur called Maraschino, but I’m not sure that’s very popular outside Italy. So, I swapped that for the cherry syrup from a tin of cherries (you could also use cherry juice instead). And for extra prettiness, I coated the almond balls in cocoa powder and more ground almonds, in addition to the grated chocolate from the original recipe. Everything else is 100% vintage and so delicious!
I was saying yesterday that I’ve been reading through really old Italian cookbooks. Well, whilst exploring among dozens recipes calling for obscure ingredients like “odour of vanilla” and Crataegus azarolus, whatever fruit that is, I also came across this really cool book written in 1891 by Pellegrino Artusi, who, Wikipedia informs me, was “an Italian businessman and writer, best known as the author of the cookbook La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Fine dining)”. So, three hours spent on Google Books later, I got crazy excited about this whole vintage Italian recipe thing. The cookbook is brilliant in all ways – amazing recipes even to modern standards and the best writing ever (I mean, Jam Roly-poly renamed “English sausage”. Ha). Interestingly enough, 90% of cake and pudding recipes use ground almonds, which make them either gluten-free or easily gluten-free-able (!). And even though most of them call for shocking amounts of eggs, the recipe I’ve chosen is not only gluten-free, but also surprisingly (and definitely accidentally) vegan. The original uses a cherry liqueur called Maraschino, but I’m not sure that’s very popular outside Italy. So, I swapped that for the cherry syrup from a tin of cherries (you could also use cherry juice instead). And for extra prettiness, I coated the almond balls in cocoa powder and more ground almonds, in addition to the grated chocolate from the original recipe. Everything else is 100% vintage and so delicious!
ALMOND TRUFFLES
Adapted from Recipe 687, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating
Well
140g (1 ½ cups) ground almonds
140g (1 cup) icing sugar
50ml (1/4 cup) cherry syrup or cherry juice
Coating:
Grated dark chocolate
Cocoa powder
Ground almonds
No comments:
Post a Comment