Panforte

Nuts and candied fruit bound by cooked honey, with barely any flour and a lot of pepper.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains honey.

Ingredients

• 200 g almonds, toasted
• 150 g hazelnuts, toasted
• 300 g candied orange and citron peel, diced
• 200 g honey
• 150 g caster sugar
• 80 g plain flour
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, nutmeg
• edible wafer sheets (ostie)
• icing sugar, to finish

Method

1. Mix the nuts, candied peel, flour, cocoa and all the spices in a large warmed bowl. EIGHTY GRAMS OF FLOUR TO SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY OF FRUIT AND NUTS: the flour is a binder, not a cake, and the finished thing should be 2 cm thick and dense enough to be difficult to cut.
2. A FULL TEASPOON OF WHITE PEPPER IS CORRECT and it is noticeable. Panforte is a spiced sweet, not a sweet with a hint of spice.
3. Heat the honey and sugar to 117C, the thread stage. Below that it will not set; above, it sets to something you cannot bite.
4. Pour the syrup over the dry mixture and work it fast with a wooden spoon. IT STIFFENS WITHIN A MINUTE and becomes unworkable, so have the tin ready before you start the syrup.
5. Line a shallow tin with wafer sheets and press the mixture in with wet hands to an even 2 cm.
6. BAKE LOW AND SHORT: 150C for 20 minutes only. It will not look done and should not — longer and the honey caramelises hard as it cools.
7. Cool completely in the tin, dust heavily with icing sugar, and cut in thin wedges. It keeps for months.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes