Day 11: A Total Panforte Disaster

Panforte was among the new recipes I wanted to try this year. It's a traditional Italian Christmas cake, combining candied fruit and different kinds of nuts with honey, sugar, and spices. As the name suggests, it's very rich - and it keeps well, even several months.

I had a stash of different nuts I had bought still back in Germany, and I thought this would be an ideal purpose for using them. I had read that the traditional panforte from Sienna combines 17 different ingredients, because the city of Sienna has 17 districts.

So I chose the following 17 ingredients: pine nuts, pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, chocolate, cocoa powder, flour, sugar, honey, butter, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, cloves, and Cointreau and adapted my recipe from that of Nigella.

All seemed to be perfect - the batter, the smell, and the taste and texture of my panforte just after I'd taken it out of the oven (I made four small ones and thought we'd eat the first one right away). It was like chocolate fudge and different nuts married with ginger bread! Heavenly indeed...

...until the disaster happened: as soon as the three other panforte cakes had cooled, it became clear that they could only be eaten by a robot or anyone else having their teeth replaced by chain saws.

I even tried to soak one of them in hot water with some honey in it, but the only thing that happened was that some of the chocolate dissolved in the water - and the panforte itself was still totally inedible (at least for a human being with a normal set of teeth).

The mistake might have been that I kept the panforte too long in the oven  - although they were still very soft when I took them out; anyway, too many precious ingredients are now on their way to a landfill site for me to try panforte any time soon :(

 

Greek Christmas Cookies with Orange and Honey

I love cookbooks where every single recipe works. Recipes from My Greek Kitchen written by Rena Salaman is one of those rare books: you choose any recipe and can be sure that the result is perfect. After a Vanillekipferl disaster from the previous days, this was the book I needed now. I chose these traditional Greek Christmas cookies flavoured with orange, honey, cinnamon, and brandy - a heavenly combination!

These cookies are made without eggs and butter, so apart from honey, they’re vegan. For a 100% vegan result, either leave the last step out (they taste great even without), or make a syrup using agave syrup instead.

I made one small change to the recipe, though: instead of walnuts, I used pecans. Walnuts tend to get rancid very easily, whereas pecans keep better, so I rarely buy walnuts.

For about 35 cookies you need:

• 150 ml olive oil


• 95g sugar


• 1 orange - juice and grated zest


• ½ tsp baking soda


• 350g flour (I used spelt 630 this time)


• 1 tsp baking powder


• pinch of salt


• ½ tsp cinnamon


• 4 Tbsp brandy

And for the syrup:

• 150ml water


• 100g sugar


• 250g honey


• 1 tsp cinnamon

• plus some walnuts or pecan nuts, chopped coarsely

Mix olive oil with sugar. Add zest, brandy and baking soda to the juice (it will foam a bit, that’s normal). In a baking bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, then add oil-sugar mixture and juice mixture. Mix the dough with a wooden spoon until it’s smooth. Then form small balls (mine were 20g or so) with your hands and place them on an oven tray covered with parchment paper. Press them down gently with a fork and bake about 15 minutes in a preheated oven (180 C), or until pale brown.

When your cookies come out of the oven, it’s time to prepare the syrup: combine water, sugar, cinnamon, and honey in a pan and bring to a boil. Let simmer over a low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Drop a couple of cookies at a time in the syrup (my pan fit 8 or so at a time), let them simmer for 1-2 minutes and then remove with a skimmer onto a plate. Top with crushed nuts while the cookies are still sticky!

These cookies are quite sweet, so they taste great with a strong espresso.