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The Tuscan pine nut cake – a recipe with a story

My granddad Remigio used to walk with a cane, more for habit than necessity, and often waved it like Charlie Chaplin. He also had the same funny walk, and loved to wear his hat at a jaunty.

Once in a while, when mum was at work, I spent an afternoon with him in San Gimignano. Our main activity was going to the park to pick up the pine nuts. The park was right outside the city walls, with gravel paths surrounding the shady flower beds and big pine trees, huge.

Now the park is unfortunately different, they cut down my huge shady pine trees, but if I close my eyes I can still hear the gravel crunching under my child feet, and the balsamic smell of the pine resin, the birichicchero, as my granddad called it.

After the walk with my eyes pointed down in the winding gravel paths searching for the tiny precious gifts, I sat in the entrance of my granddad’s house, on a marble staircase, and opened the pine nuts with a small hammer that he kept just for us grandchildren. The hammer blows, a bit insecure, roared into the hall and the pine nuts shells flew everywhere.

I ate one pine nut after the other with my hands blackened by the fairy pine nut shell dust, leaving just a tiny handful for a possible cake. That’s why I waited so long to make my first pine nut cake! This is a recipe with a long story, my favourite kind of recipes as you may already know, just like last year Laura’s Sacher Torte.

This year the protagonist is Rita, Laura’s mother. This is Rita’s pine nut cake, passed on by Giuliana, who seems to have had the recipe from a famous Sienese pastry shop… here the mystery deepens, but since it is Christmas I want to tell you this perfect recipe. The pine nut cake recipe had all the credentials to succeed, I had tasted it several times at Laura’s and I really wanted to bake it again, that’s the result!

 

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4.25 from 4 votes

Tuscan pine nut cake

Servings 8

Ingredients

  • 180 g of butter at room temperature
  • 150 g of caster sugar
  • 3 free range eggs
  • 180 g of organic tender wheat flour
  • 10 g of baking powder
  • 1 handful of shelled pine nuts

For the custard:

  • 3 free range egg yolks
  • 4 tablespoons of caster sugar
  • 2 tablespoons of organic tender wheat flour
  • 500 ml of whole milk
  • 2 tablespoons of raisins, soaked in Vinsanto, Tuscan sweet wine

Instructions

  • As first thing, make the custard, you'll need it to be cold when you will add it to the cake. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it starts to simmer, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and flour, then pour in the hot milk in a thin stream, stirring continuously with a whisk. Put the custard on a low flame and stir constantly until it begins to thicken: remove it from the heat, add the raisins and let it cool.
  • Preheat oven to 180°C.
  • Whip the butter at room temperature with the sugar for a few minutes until it becomes creamy and light.
  • Add the eggs gradually, one after the other, waiting for the first to be completely mixed before adding the second. Stir in the flour sifted with the baking powder.
  • Grease and flour a 23 cm wide round baking tin.
  • Separate the dough into two equal parts with the help of a spoon: put a spoonful of batter into the baking tin and one in a pastry bag, and so on, until you've finished. Level the batter into the baking tin, spread the cold custard over it, then add the remaining batter in concentric circles, trying not to mix it with the custard. Sprinkle the pine nuts on top and bake for 40 minutes.
  • When golden brown, remove it from the oven, let it cool for a few minutes, then gently remove it from the mould and when completely cold, dust the cake with icing sugar.
Tried this recipe?We love to see your creations! Snap a pic and tag @julskitchen and hashtag it #myseasonaltable!

The recipe, tried and perfected for years by more than one family, is a reliable one: it is simple to make and gives a tremendous satisfaction to take it out from the oven, hot and sprinkled with toasted pine nuts, not to mention to eat it, with a fondant custard heart dotted with juicy raisins soaked in sweet wine. Talking about the silky custard, don’t miss the recipe, it has become the standard procedure to make custard at home!

Now just have a look at this slice of pine nut cake, it looks exactly like the cake showed in the San Gimignano pastry shop windows I looked at  with greedy eyes coming back home from the park with my granddad, with one hand secured into his huge hand and the other one holding tightly my bag of pine nuts.

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This Post Has 61 Comments

  1. It looks so good and easy to make! I also used to pick pinenuts (from my garden) and then break the shall with the hammer and get all my hands black! 🙂

    Reply

  4. What a delightful story – I can just imagine your granddad now :o) I love the Italian pine cake – a wonderful blend of lovely flavors!

    Reply

  6. I have never come across a recipe for pine nut cake and it definitely does intrigue! Pine nuts are a rare treat because they are not easy to come by here in Texas. Your cake looks like something I would definitely enjoy. Thanks for posting this recipe!

    Reply

    1. here in Tuscany they are extremely easy to find, but oh gosh, so expensive, especially if you’re searching for organic ones! try with almond flakes if you cannot find pine nuts, I bet it is a delicious combination as well!

      Reply

  7. This is a wonderful story, it could be a children’s picture book! The cake looks so dense and moist, I’ve been experimenting with nut cakes this year, but I haven’t yet used pine nuts, they’ve gotten very expensive in the past couple of years here. The custard center sounds so good, too.

    Reply

    1. I do love the idea of a children’s picture book, with pastel colours and sketchy drawings! as I was telling Tina, they are so expensive also in Tuscany!

      Reply

  9. Wonderful story 🙂
    I’ve had delicious pine nut dishes, but never this cake – it looks amazing! I’d love to try a slice 🙂

    Reply

  12. The recipe becomes more special because of the heartwarming story that goes with it. Lovely post! Thank you for sharing…

    Reply

    1. It is similar.. I think the torta della nonna has short pastry at the bottom and over the custard, not this soft dough, but it is very similar! and I love torta della nonna, too!

      Reply

  14. […] The Tuscan pine nut cake – a recipe with a story Pine nuts: little, delicious, weirdly shaped pebbles of oily joy! I still remember as a kid often hitting my fingers with a stone trying to crack their shell open, just to get the fresh fruit right out of a pine cone. Therefore this is one of my favorite Tuscan dessert recipes. It also includes raisins, and yellow cream, all layered in crumbling “pasta frolla”. Heaven! […]

    Reply

  15. what size baking tin/what kind did you use?… spring form… pie dish… 8 inch? any information would be helpful!

    Reply


  16. I just pulled this cake out of the oven and it looks and smells wonderful! We’ll be sharing it with friends later. 🙂 Thanks so much for posting the recipe and the beautiful story with it.

    Reply

  17. I love a good recipe, especially if it comes w a good story! This cake looks amazing. Love the snowy sugar on top. Grazia!

    Reply

  19. Hi Giulia:

    Thank you for sharing your story and this recipe for Tuscan Pine Nut Cake. I can’t wait to make it! Please, a couple of questions about the recipe:
    – Is “tender wheat flour” the same as wheat pastry flour?
    – Is Vinsanto, Tuscan sweet wine similar to a Moscato? Would soaking the raisins in Moscato be comparable?

    Reply

    1. Hi Cristina, yes, wheat pastry flour is perfect for this cake.
      Vinsanto is a sweet dessert wine, you can use moscato or another sweet wine, the result will be just as amazing as with vinsanto!
      all the best and happy baking
      Giulia

      Reply

  20. I came across this cake just by accident today and am making it right now (12:45a.m.) for my husband. If it turns out as well as it looks in your pictures…and smells from the oven, I will make it for my Italian in-laws this Christmas. Thank you for the lovely story and a new recipe!

    Reply

    1. Hi Jillian, you can make it also the day before. Keep it in the fridge e take it out of the fridge a few hours before serving.

      Reply

      1. Thanks so much for the quick response. Making it a day early will make our Thanksgiving much less busy. Cheers!

        Reply

  26. Hi Giulia, I landed on your blog looking for a recipe online and I really like it. I’ve already had in the past torta della nonna but never this one, I’ll try soon!
    Sorry, I had to comment on the “sac-a-poche”, in reality in French is poche à douille, and I’m not sure where we Italians got it from but it’s just an Italian thing…like calling Chantilly cream/custard instead of the French sweetened whipped cream.
    Ciao da un’italiana a NY 🙂

    Francesca

    Reply

  28. Ciao Giulia, complimenti…le ricette sono fantastiche! I’m slowly working my way through them one by one and yet to be disappointed! I’m 8 months pregnant and in a phase of ‘stocking up the freezer’ do you think this cake and the torta di cioccolato e clementine could be frozen?? Thanks again e saluti da Firenze

    Reply

    1. Ciao Rebecca, I am so happy to know that you appreciate my recipes!
      For your project of stocking up the freezer I’d prefer drier cakes, just like a pound cake, which surely will freeze better than this cake. The torta di cioccolato with clementine is perfect, too. Crostate with jam would be good to freeze as well!
      oh, and congratulations on the happy news!

      Reply

  29. Hi Giulia, I recently received your book (Polish translation) as a gift. Browsing through the dessert section I was a bit surprised to see that almost every cake/biscuit had, as the translation put it, yeast as the raising agent. This included this recipe, as well as biscotti, etc. I decided to cross-check with your blog & I’m glad I did :(. Unfortunately this is the second Italian cookbook translated into Polish that I’ve seen this mistake. I guess the word ‘lievito’ is problematic, but…

    Reply

  30. Hi Giulia, thanks for the reply! Do you mean feedback about the Polish translation or specifically about the yeast? I’m thinking of writing to the publisher…

    Reply


  31. Forget the cake, I’ve fallen in love with your grandfather….on one hand he couldn’t be more different than the one grandfather I had in my life but on the other hand they’re identical in ways. I feel SO incredibly sorry for people who didn’t grow up with a loving, kind, a little bit unique, blessed, dear sweet grandfather at least for a while in their life. I was so lucky to have mine until I was 28 years old and he was in his 90s. There is just something it gives the life of a child that can’t be replicated by anyone else in any other way. Each type of relative, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and those honorary “aunts and uncles” all play a different and important role and none can take the place of any other. I can picture in my mind you walking along holding his hand and grasping onto that bag of treasure. And then, impatiently waiting while the cake, which you had played a the most important role in preparing (even if you didn’t touch one other ingredient) in your mind. It’s amazing the intense emotions food can play with our memories and our minds.

    Reply


  32. Just love your story. Can’t wait to try your recipe once I figure out the amounts in cups and ounces. I make pignoli cookies from a recipe a friend gave me about 17 years ago, my family loves them. Thanks for sharing your lovely story.

    Reply

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