The devil made me do it. No, not really, but supposedly a nun in Medieval Italy claimed that the devil in the form of a black cat tried to convince her to taste a fruit and nut concoction she was making, and that's just one of the legends behind panforte di Siena, an Italian tradition and delicious treat from Siena. The name translates "strong bread," though it's not really a cake or a bread, but a dense fruit and nut confection with only a small amount of flour. The dessert is very popular in Siena during the Christmas season, and I would love to be there to see the bakery displays of the beautiful panforti.
I made this one on Saturday, and the whole time I had my paternal grandmother in mind. I grew up with strong memories of her in the kitchen making all kinds of goodies. Food was how she entertained, and both my grandmother and grandfather had a sweet tooth. The table was always loaded at meals and the array of desserts and treats was enough to make my child's eyes wide as saucers. She made several fruit cakes every year, the first of which went out with the men during hunting season, and then she made more for Thanksgiving and Christmas along with her applesauce cake and coconut cake. She even made one to send home with us every year, and Mom put it into the freezer so Dad could enjoy a piece whenever he wanted a taste of Grandma's cooking. Her fruit cake recipe has several pounds of nuts and fruit as well as flour, eggs, and leavening. Grandma was a Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher for many years, so no alcohol went into her recipe, and that's how Dad likes them. She always stored them in a cool place wrapped in wax paper and foil (though later she used plastic wrap) and they kept for several weeks.
I've never made my grandmother's fruit cake, but somehow in making this panforte I felt that I was paying homage to my grandmother and the joy she brought everyone with all of her baking. I was also paying homage to Michael's Italian ancestors.
The dessert is not difficult to make, though chopping all the fruit and nuts takes a little time. I searched many grocery stores in my area, but I simply could not find candied orange peel anywhere. Online searches yielded results, but it was quite spendy, so I decided I could make my own a whole lot cheaper, even it if meant taking some extra time. I found several good recipes online that I have listed in the Resources below, and I chose to make Jen's recipe at Use Real Butter. It worked well, though the peels still had a touch of bitterness, but I think I just need to perfect my technique. Since I made the orange peel a full week before I needed it, I stored all the peels in sugar in a Mason jar and then used some of that orange-infused sugar in the panforte. The decadent orange taste and perfume permeated the dessert and played well with all the spices.
The recipe calls for blanched almonds, and I did soak them in boiling water for a minute or so, but the skins were not slipping off as easily as I wanted them to. After struggling with the skins and a paring knife, I finally decided to skip that step, as I had done with the Florentines, and just left the skins on. I did not have a dark nonstick cake pan, so I used a 9.5-inch nonstick springform, and I was very pleased with how easily the cake released and particularly happy that none of it ran out the bottom! I ran a thin plastic knife around the sides just before popping the latch, and the panforte came right out.
The recipe comes from Gina DePalma's new cookbook Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen, and I'm sending a big thanks to Ilva for turning me on to Gina's book. Her recipe uses chocolate like a Panforte Nero, but instead of melting baking chocolate into the sugar and honey, she uses Dutch-processed cocoa and tosses it with the fruit and nuts along with all the other dry ingredients. The cocoa flavor does not overwhelm and is more of an aside than a predominate flavor. The only thing that confused me was the instructions about baking, which says to bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the entire surface is bubbling. After 20 minutes there was no bubbling, and I wasn't sure which was the priority--time or bubbling! So I let it go a little longer to see if anything would bubble, which took about another 10 minutes. The edges got a little hard, harder than they should have been, I think. The rest of the dessert was gooey and wonderful.
The panforte is studded with fruit and nuts throughout and looks beautiful when you turn it out of the pan. Because it is so rich, you can easily get 16 servings out of the recipe. I was dying over the smell and fell in love with the flavor and texture. We will definitely have this for future Christmas celebrations, and I will think of my grandmother with each bite.
Because making this confection reminded me so much of my grandmother's fruit cakes and all her holiday baking, I am submitting this to Apples & Thyme, an event that celebrates time in the kitchen with our mothers and grandmothers. Visit Vanielje Kitchen and Passionate Palate to read the beautiful stories from the November and December round-ups.
📖 Recipe
Panforte di Sienna (Italian Fruit Cake)
Equipment
- 9 x 2-inch heavy nonstick round cake or springform pan
- large bowl
- medium bowl
- medium sauce pan
- candy thermometer
Ingredients
- 3 cups whole blanched almonds (roughly chopped)
- 1 ¾ cups whole hazelnuts (skinned or unskinned, roughly chopped)
- 2 cups diced candied orange peel
- 6 ounces dried apricots (diced)
- 5 ounces dried figs (diced)
- 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (or gluten-free flour blend)
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 ¾ cups granulated sugar (I used part orange sugar and part regular sugar.)
- 1 ¾ cups honey
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- confectioners sugar (for dusting)
Preparation
- Position the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 325° F. Coat the pan with cooking spray, then lay a round of parchment in the bottom, and then coat the top of the parchment with cooking spray. Dust flour all the way around the sides and the bottom and tap out any extra. The panforte will be very sticky, so you want the pan to be well-prepared.
- In the large bowl, toss together prepared almonds, hazelnuts, figs, apricots, and orange peels.
- In the medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, cocoa powder, salt, nutmeg, cloves, and ground pepper. Make sure all the dry ingredients are thoroughly combined. Add the dry ingredients to the fruit and nuts and toss together until everything is thoroughly coated.
- In the medium sauce pan with the candy thermometer attached, add the sugar, honey and butter and cook over medium heat until the temperature reaches 217° F. Remove the pan from the heat and remove the candy thermometer. Quickly pour the sugar mixture over the fruit and nuts mixture and stir together with a nonstick spatula until everything is thoroughly coated.
- Pour into the prepared baking pan and spread the mixture around evenly.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the surface is bubbly. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
- To serve, dust with powdered sugar and cut into thin slices. Wrap in parchment and plastic wrap to store.
Nutrition
Resources
- Use Real Butter - Candied Orange Peels
- Il Forno - Candied Orange Peels
- Baking Bites - Candied Orange Peel
- Smitten Kitchen - Candy Girl
- Food & Wine - Candied Orange Peels
- NPR - Oranges and Chocolate: Romancing the Rind
- Allrecipes - Sweet Candied Orange and Lemon Peels
References
- Wikipedia - Panforte
- What's Cooking in America - Panforte di Siena
- About.com - Italian Food - Siena's Panforte, A Christmas Delight
ilva says
I'm happy you made it and that you like it, I better make one myself I think!
african vanielje says
I love panforte Andrea. This is such a lovely informative post, thanks for submitting it to Apples & Thyme.
If you bring your peels to the boil, simmer for 30 minutes then discard the water, and repeat 3 times before proceeding with your candy recipe you should get rid of any bitterness. You just need to get all the oils out of the peel, and then slow cooking in syrup to give the sugar syrup a chance to replace all the moisture in the peel.
T.W. Barritt says
Beautiful! The clusters of fruit and nuts are dazzling! Merry Christmas, Andrea!
Andrea says
Ilva, thanks again for sharing with me! It really is delicious!
Inge, thanks for the tips on perfecting my candied orange peel. I will definitely make it again with your instructions.
T.W., thank you! And Merry Christmas to you!
Robyn Vickers says
This looks divine. Somewhere between peanut brittle and my Mother's fabulous Christmas Fruit Cake. I might just be tempted to indulge a little...
Michael R says
I made this for Christmas, and it was great! I got the recipe from the Splendid Table newsletter. I found your blog post when I was Googling to see if anyone else had posted about their experiences with this recipe.
I, too, found that there wasn't any bubbling occurring at 15-20 minutes. I let mine go more than 30, and even then the bubbling didn't reach the center. I think next time I would take it out when the edge is bubbling.
I weighed and measured everything carefully (I think), and the volume was way too much for a 9-inch cake pan. So I used two 7-inch springform pans.
I'm wondering if you found a good way to cut it. Because the cake is so gooey, it's hard not to squish it with the knife.
Thanks for the story and pics!
Andrea says
Robin, I hope you had a chance to make the panforte. We really loved it.
Michael, I'm so glad to hear that I wasn't the only one who didn't get any bubbling! I think next time I'll make the panforte in two smaller pans so that I have one to keep and one for a gift. The only way we could cut it was to use a very thin long knife and warm it in hot water. Pulling straight out like with a cheesecake seemed to help.
Sweetside says
A channel knife is the easiest way to get the peel off of an orange. You can find one at http://www.amazon.com Victorinox makes a very good one, it's $11. What makes the candied citrus bitter is the pith (the white part after the skin).
Also, when I make candied peel I use the recipe in American Masala by Suvir Saran.
In the words of Jacques Pepin, 'Happy Cooking!'
Peter says
I am not sure this is the real thing. I mean, it is not, I do prepare it regularly and that really does not seem right. But it is your version and in the kitchen all is allowed!!
Thanks for sharing!
Dan says
Siena, not Sienna