Pandolce Genovese
Production area: All the regional area.
Curiosities: It is the traditional Christmas dessert of Genoa, with a rough aspect but a rich content, recalling the nature of Ligurian people. The tradition to enrich bread with zibibbo is very ancient: as a matter of fact, evidences demonstrate that it was already known by Egyptians. The ingredients demonstrate that this product has undeniable Arabian origins. Probably, the merchants from Genoa discovered it during their journeys: after bringing it home with them, they changed and enriched it. In the past, it was considered blasphemous not to prepare at home Pandolce at Christmas: each housewife jealously preserved her more or less secret recipe. All of them were characterized by the considerable abundance in precious ingredients. This dessert was the result of a careful and loving preparation, and it was not unusual to find who, to guarantee a perfect leavening, used to bring it to bed and place it near the now forgotten "praeve", the tool used to lift the sheets around the bedwarmer.
The arrival of Pandolce at the end of the Christmas lunch was characterized by a rite: the youngest member of the family used to to bring it to the table decorated with a small branch of laurel and the oldest member used to cut it. A slice of it was kept for the poor and another jealously preserved for St Blaise's day to protect the throat.
Product features: Round sweet cake with a diameter of 25/30 cm and a width of 10/15 cm in the middle and degrading to the sides. Filled with pine nuts, raisins, pieces of candied fruit, sweet fennel, crushed pistachios.
Preparation: Ingredients: 4 kg flour, 200 g yeast, 50 g sweet fennel, 75 g pine nuts, 75 g well-cleaned pistachios, 100 g raisins, 100 g small pieces of candied fruit, 600 g butter, 1 spoon orange flower water, 1 kg sugar.
Processing: Take the 4 kilos of flour, take one kilo out of them and mix it with yeast having at least 24 hours and a lot of mild water, enough to form a rather firm dough. Wrap it up with a cloth and let it leaven for 18 hours; during the summer, put it in the middle of the three kilos of flour, pouring mild water to make a soft dough. Then put one glass and a half of Marsala wine, the softened butter, a spoon of orange flower water, and the sugar. Mix everything, gradually adding the other ingredients. Form more shapes and let them leaven for 12 hours. Wrap them up with a napkin. After the leavening, take off the napkin and cut a triangle into the top of the dough, then bake it in the oven at 180° for about one hour.
