Delicious Italian Dishes by Mrs. W. G. Water - HTML preview

Italian Sweets and Cakes

No. 1. Bodino of Semolina

Ingredients: Semolina, milk, eggs, castor sugar, lemon, sultanas,

rum, butter, cream, or Zabajone.

Boil one and a half pints of milk with four ounces of castor sugar,

and gradually add five ounces of semolina, boil for a quarter of an

hour more and stir continually with a wooden spoon, then take the

saucepan off the fire, and when it is cooled a little, add the

yolks of six and the whites of two eggs well beaten up, a little

grated lemon peel, three-quarters of an ounce of sultanas and two

small glasses of rum. Mix well, so as to get it very smooth, pour

it into a buttered mould and serve either hot or cold. If cold,

put whipped cream flavoured with stick vanilla round the dish; if

hot, a Zabajone.

No. 2. Crema rappresa (Coffee Cream)

Ingredients: Coffee, cream, eggs, sugar, butter.

Bruise five ounces of freshly roasted Mocha coffee, and add it to

three-quarters of a pint of boiling cream; cover the saucepan, let

it simmer for twenty minutes, then pass through a bit of fine

muslin. In the meantime mix the yolks of ten eggs and two whole

eggs with eight ounces of castor sugar and a glass of cream; add

the coffee cream to this and pass the whole through a fine sieve

into a buttered mould. Steam in a bain-marie for rather more than

an hour, but do not let the water boil; then put the cream on ice

for about an hour, and before serving turn it out on a dish and

pour some cream flavoured with stick vanilla round it.

No. 3. Crema Montata alle Fragole (Strawberry Cream)

Ingredients: Cream, castor sugar, Maraschino, strawberries or

strawberry jam.

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Delicious Italian dishes

Put a pint of cream on ice, and after two hours whip it up. Pass

three tablespoonsful of strawberry jam through a sieve and add two

tablespoonsful of Maraschino; mix this with the cream and build it

up into a pyramid. Garnish with meringue biscuits and serve

quickly. You may use fresh strawberries when in season, but then

add castor sugar to taste.

No. 4. Croccante di Mandorle (Cream Nougat)

Ingredients: Almonds, sugar, lemon juice, butter, castor sugar,

pistachios, preserved fruits.

Blanch half a pound of almonds, cut them into shreds and dry them

in a slow oven until they are a light brown colour; then put a

quarter pound of lump sugar into a saucepan and caramel it lightly;

stir well with a wooden spoon. When the sugar is dissolved, throw

the hot almonds into it and also a little lemon juice. Take the

saucepan off the fire and mix the almonds with the sugar, pour it

into a buttered mould and press it against the sides of the mould

with a lemon, but remember that the casing of sugar must be very

thin. (You may, if you like, spread out the mixture on a flat dish

and line the mould with your hands, but the sugar must be kept

hot.) Then take it out of the mould and decorate it with castor

sugar, pistacchio nuts, and preserved fruits. Fill this case with

whipped cream and preserved fruits or fresh strawberries.

No. 5. Crema tartara alla Caramella (Caramel Cream)

Ingredients: Cream, eggs, caramel sugar, vanilla or lemon

flavouring.

Boil a pint of cream and give it any flavour you like. When cold,

add the yolks of eight eggs and two tablespoonsful of castor sugar,

mix well and pass it through a sieve; then burn some sugar to a

caramel, line a smooth mould with it and pour the cream into it.

Boil in a bain-marie for an hour and serve hot or cold.

No. 6. Cremona Cake

Ingredients: Ground rice, ground maize, sugar, one orange, eggs,

salt, cream, Maraschino, almonds, preserved cherries.

Weigh three eggs, and take equal quantities of castor sugar,

butter, ground rice and maize (the last two together); make a light

paste with them, but only use one whole egg and the yolks of the

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Delicious Italian dishes

two others, add the scraped peel of an orange and a pinch of salt.

Roll this paste out to the thickness of a five-shilling piece,

colour it with the yolk of an egg and bake it in a cake tin in a

hot oven until it is a good colour, then take it out and cut it

into four equal circular pieces. Have ready some well-whipped

cream and flavour it with Maraschino, put a thick layer of this on

one of the rounds of pastry, then cover it with: the next round,

on which also put a layer of cream, and so on until you come to the

last round, which forms the top of the cake. Then split some

almonds and colour them in the oven, cover the top of the cake with

icing sugar flavoured with orange, and decorate the top with the

almonds and preserved cherries.

No. 7. Cake alla Tolentina

Ingredients: Sponge-cake, jam, brandy or Maraschino, cream, pineapple.

Make a medium-sized sponge-cake; when cold cut off the top and

scoop out all the middle and leave only the brown case; cover the

outside with a good coating of jam or red currant jelly, and

decorate it with some of the white of the cake cut into fancy

shapes. Soak the rest of the crumb in brandy or Maraschino and mix

it with quarter of a pint of whipped cream and bits of pineapple

cut into small dice; fill the cake with this; pile it up high in

the centre and decorate the top with the brown top cut into fancy

shapes.

No. 8. Riso all'Imperatrice

Ingredients: Rice, sugar, milk, ice, preserved fruits, blanc-mange, Maraschino, cream.

Boil two dessert-spoonsful of rice and one of sugar in milk. When

sufficiently boiled, drain the rice and let it get cold. In the

meantime place a mould on ice, and decorate it with slices of

preserved fruit, and fix them to the mould with just enough nearly

cold dissolved isinglass to keep them in place. Also put half a

pint of blanc-mange on the ice, and stir it till it is the right

consistency, gradually add the boiled rice, half a glass of

Maraschino, some bits of pineapple cut in dice, and last of all

half a pint of whipped cream. Fill the mould with this, and when

it is sufficiently cold, turn it out and serve with a garnish of

glace fruits or a few brandy cherries.

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Delicious Italian dishes

No. 9. Amaretti leggieri (Almond Cakes)

Ingredients: Almonds (sweet and bitter), eggs, castor sugar.

Blanch equal quantities of sweet and bitter almonds, and dry them a

little in the oven, then pound them in a mortar, and add nearly

double their quantity of castor sugar. Mix with the white of an

egg well beaten up into a snow, and shape into little balls about

the size of a pigeon's egg. Put them on a piece of stout white

paper, and bake them in a very slow oven. They should be very

light and delicate in flavour.

No. 10. Cakes alla Livornese

Ingredients: Almonds, eggs, sugar, salt, potato flour, butter.

Pound two ounces of almonds, and mix them with the yolks of two

eggs and a spoonful of castor sugar flavoured with orange juice.

Then mix two ounces of sugar with an egg, and to this add the

almonds, a pinch of salt, and gradually strew in one and a half

ounces of potato flour. When it is all well mixed, add one ounce

of melted butter, shape the cakes and bake them in a slow oven.

No. 11. Genoese Pastry

Ingredients: Eggs, sugar, butter, flour, almonds, orange or lemon,

brandy.

Weigh four eggs, and take equal weights of castor sugar, butter,

and flour. Pound three ounces of almonds, and mix them with an

egg, melt the butter, and mix all the ingredients with a wooden

spoon in a pudding basin for ten minutes, then add a little scraped

orange or lemon peel, and a dessert-spoonful of brandy. Spread out

the paste in thin layers on a copper baking sheet, cover them with

buttered paper, and bake in a moderately hot oven.

These cakes must be cut into shapes when they are hot, as otherwise

they will break.

No. 12. Zabajone

Ingredients: Eggs, sugar, Marsala, Maraschino or other light-coloured liqueur, sponge fingers.

Zabajone is a kind of syllabub. It is made with Marsala and

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Delicious Italian dishes

Maraschino, or Marsala and yellow Chartreuse. Reckon the

quantities as follows: for each person the yolks of three eggs,

one teaspoonful of castor sugar to each egg, and a wine-glass of

wine and liqueur mixed. Whip up the yolks of the eggs with the

sugar, then gradually add the wine. Put this in a bain-marie, and

stir until it has thickened to the consistency of a custard. Take

care, however, that it does not boil. Serve hot in custard

glasses, and hand sponge fingers with it.

No. 13. Iced Zabajone

Ingredients: Eggs, castor sugar, Marsala, cinnamon, lemon, stick

vanilla, rum, Maraschino, butter, ice.

Mix the yolks of ten eggs, two dessert-spoonsful of castor sugar,

and three wine- glasses of Marsala, add half a stick of vanilla, a

small bit of whole cinnamon, and the peel of half a lemon cut into

slices.

Whip this up lightly over a slow fire until it is nearly boiling

and slightly frothy; then remove it, take out the cinnamon,

vanilla, and lemon pool, and whip up the rest for a minute or two

away from the fire. Add a tablespoonful of Maraschino and one of

rum, and, if you like, a small quantity of dissolved isinglass.

Stir up the whole, pour it into a silver souffle dish, and put it

on ice. Serve with sponge cakes or iced wafers.

No. 14. Pan-forte di Siena (Sienese Hardbake)

Ingredients: Honey, almonds, filberts, candied lemon peel, pepper,

cinnamon, chocolate, corn flour, large wafers.

Boil half a pound of honey in a copper vessel, and then add to it a

few blanched almonds and filberts cut in halves or quarters and

slightly browned, a little candied lemon peel, a dust of pepper and

powdered cinnamon and a quarter pound of grated chocolate. Mix all

well together, and gradually add a tablespoonful of corn flour end

two of ground almonds to thicken it. Then take the vessel off the

fire, spread the mixture on large wafers, and make each cake about

an inch thick. Garnish them on the top with almonds cut in half,

and dust over a little powdered sugar and cinnamon, then put them

in a very slow oven for an hour.

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