Panforte, a spicy Christmas cake from Siena
Servings 8
Ingredients
- 300 g of almonds
- 100 g hazelnuts
- 150 g candied orange peel
- 150 g candied citron peel
- 150 g flour
- 10 g spices for panforte*
- 150 g honey
- 150 g +icing sugar
- a sheet of thin rice paper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C and toast the almonds and hazelnuts in the oven for about 15 minutes.
- In a large bowl add the toasted almonds and hazelnuts, the flour, the finely chopped orange and citron candied peel and the spices. Stir to mix.
- Line with the rice paper wafer a 18 cm round cake tin (preferably a springform tin, it will be much easier to remove the panforte once baked).
- Melt in a small saucepan over low heat the honey and the icing sugar with 3 tablespoons of water. When they are completely melted and become a thick golden syrup, remove the pan from the heat.
- Pour the syrup into the bowl with all the other ingredients and stir with a spoon to mix everything: it will be a very hard dough.
- Scoop the dough into the cake tin lined with rice paper and smooth the surface with a spoon.
- Dust the surface with icing sugar and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, then remove the panforte from the oven, let cool slightly and then remove from the baking tin. If you wait until completely cold the caramelized sugar will stick to the tin and give you hard times - as it happened to me. If it happens, slightly warm the tin and the panforte will come out with no problems.
- Once the panforte is cold, dust generously with icing sugar.
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