Thursday 10 December 2015

Panforte di Siena

In case you've never heard of it, panforte is a traditional, festive Italian spiced fruit and nut cake, served with coffee and liqueurs after a meal. After watching Antonio Carluccio make a panforte on TV last Christmas, I knew it was something I'd have to try making myself.

The traditional recipe is easy to veganise as the only animal-derived ingredient is honey. I've also adapted the recipe to make it gluten free, contain less sugar and use easy-to-find UK ingredients. The resulting cake is still deliciously sweet and tastes something like a cross between a fruit and nut energy bar and Christmas cake! Having made it once, I reckon it would actually be pretty easy to make a raw version. 

Serves 16-20
  • 200g/8oz (combined weight) dried figs and/or pitted dates, roughly chopped
  • 50g/2oz each of raisins, sultanas and currants
  • 1 level tsp mixed (pumpkin pie) spice
  • juice and zest of 2 large oranges and 1 lemon
  • 150g/6oz candied fruit, such as glacé cherries, apple, melon, citrus peel etc.
  • 100g/4oz almonds, lightly toasted
  • 100g/4oz walnuts, lightly toasted
  • 4 tbsp agave, date or golden syrup
  • 4 tbsp gluten-free flour
  • 5 tbsp Vin Santo, dessert wine, amaretto or sweet sherry (I used amaretto)
  • Icing sugar to dust
Heat the oven to 150 C/140 C Fan/Gas 2./300 F; grease and line a loose-bottomed 25cm/10" round cake tin, with grease proof paper.

Toast the nuts, cool and then roughly chop or grind coarsely, depending on the texture you prefer.

Chop the figs or dates roughly and put them in a pan with the other dried and candied fruits.
Add the syrup, wine/liqueur, citrus juice, zest and mixed spice.
Stir together and cook gently for about 10 minutes.
Then add the chopped nuts and flour and mix well.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and press down well.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

Take out of the oven and leave to cool in the tin.
When cold, sprinkle generously with sifted icing sugar.
Cut into thin slices to serve.

Stores for up to a month in an airtight container.

Find my other vegetarian Christmas recipes here.

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2 comments:

  1. Thank you - this was not an easy recipe to find, especially in English. I will try it soon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the look of this! It's a shame that I didn't see this before Christmas! I'm going to have to think of some upcoming excuse to make this!

    ReplyDelete

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