Zuccotto

A dome lined with soaked sponge and filled with two ricotta creams.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains alchermes, which is coloured with kermes insects, ricotta whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 1 sponge cake, about 24 cm, sliced 1 cm thick
• 150 ml alchermes or maraschino, diluted with water
• 500 g ricotta, drained 24 hours
• 300 ml double cream
• 150 g icing sugar
• 100 g dark chocolate, chopped small
• 60 g candied peel, diced
• 40 g cocoa powder
• 60 g toasted almonds, chopped

Method

1. Line a rounded bowl with cling film, then with sponge slices cut into wedges, brushing each with the diluted liqueur as it goes in. Patch every gap — a hole lets the filling out when you turn it out.
2. Beat the drained ricotta with the icing sugar and fold in the whipped cream.
3. DIVIDE THE CREAM AND MAKE TWO FILLINGS: fold the chocolate, candied peel and almonds into one half, and the cocoa into the other so it goes dark.
4. Spread the pale filling against the sponge walls in a thick layer, hollowing out the middle, then fill the hollow with the dark one.
5. Two fillings in that arrangement is the whole point: a cut wedge shows sponge, then pale, then dark, in rings. Mixed into one it is a trifle in a bowl.
6. Close the base with more soaked sponge and press it down firmly.
7. CHILL 8 HOURS, NOT FREEZE. It wants to be cold and sliceable and still creamy; frozen it goes solid and the sponge turns to ice. Turn it out and dust half the dome with cocoa.

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