Siena Cake - Panforte de Siena

"My husband Steingrim makes this fabulous fruit and nut cake every year for the holidays, and it's one fruit cake that you won't find people using for a door stop! No, our family members tussle over pieces of this stuff. :) The cake originates from Siena, in the Tuscan region of Italy, where it is very popular and is exported to many countries. It is a perfect accompaniment to after-dinner coffee."
 
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photo by moose_kristi photo by moose_kristi
photo by moose_kristi
photo by Julesong photo by Julesong
Ready In:
50mins
Ingredients:
12
Yields:
36 1 cake, at least 36 thin slices but sometimes more
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ingredients

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directions

  • Chop almonds, hazelnuts, apricots, pineapple, orange and lemon peel.
  • Mix well with flour, cinnamon, and cocoa.
  • Put sugar and honey in a saucepan, stirring over medium heat until sugar is dissolved.
  • Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
  • Add chocolate to saucepan, stir until melted, and remove from heat.
  • Combine with fruit and nut mixture; cut parchment paper circle to fit bottom of 8" well-buttered round cake pan, then butter the paper and evenly spread the batter into the pan.
  • Bake at 300 degrees F for 35 minutes.
  • Let cool in pan.
  • Remove cake from pan, wrap in foil, and let stand overnight.
  • Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut into thin wedges.
  • Wrapped in aluminum foil to stay air-tight, it will keep for weeks, refrigeration not needed.
  • Note: the Julesong photo accompanying this cake was taken about a month after it was made, because this cake can keep for so long and we forgot to take pics when it was newly done and the powdered sugar was still all pretty. :) Please excuse the slightly messy nature of the cake in the photo - we'll replace it with a good one, next year.

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Reviews

  1. made this up for my xmas hampers, but found it not sweet enough, and a tad dry. BUT I had nothing to compare it too :) I cut up some little pieces and put them in a ziplock bag with a teaspoon of icing sugar, and took them to some friends to try. They had tasted the real thing in Italy. They said it was better then the one they had :) Once it was dusted all over with the sugar, I found it was a lot nicer then without. My mix was also a little dry, I think it needed a little more honey, as it certainly wasnt a "Batter" thanks for posting!
     
  2. This tasted really lovely and rich but I had trouble getting the dough to come together, I made it as stated but there didnt seem to be enough liquidy ingredients and some of the dry floury fruit&nut mix was left in the bowl. regardless it baked up ok.
     
  3. This looks exactly like the panforte my aunt and her family send out every year to all us lucky relatives! I've never made it myself, but I have to say: in our modern culture of super-sweet, quick&cheap desserts, this is a rich and truly amazing treat.
     
  4. I knew I had to try this when I read the ingredient list. I was so sure I would like it that I doubled the recipe. I wasn't disappointed!
     
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p>It's simply this: I love to cook! :) <br /><br />I've been hanging out on the internet since the early days and have collected loads of recipes. I've tried to keep the best of them (and often the more unusual) and look forward to sharing them with you, here. <br /><br />I am proud to say that I have several family members who are also on RecipeZaar! <br /><br />My husband, here as <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/39857>Steingrim</a>, is an excellent cook. He rarely uses recipes, though, so often after he's made dinner I sit down at the computer and talk him through how he made the dishes so that I can get it down on paper. Some of these recipes are in his account, some of them in mine - he rarely uses his account, though, so we'll probably usually post them to mine in the future. <br /><br />My sister <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/65957>Cathy is here as cxstitcher</a> and <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/62727>my mom is Juliesmom</a> - say hi to them, eh? <br /><br />Our <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/379862>friend Darrell is here as Uncle Dobo</a>, too! I've been typing in his recipes for him and entering them on R'Zaar. We're hoping that his sisters will soon show up with their own accounts, as well. :) <br /><br />I collect cookbooks (to slow myself down I've limited myself to purchasing them at thrift stores, although I occasionally buy an especially good one at full price), and - yes, I admit it - I love FoodTV. My favorite chefs on the Food Network are Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis. I'm not fond over fakey, over-enthusiastic performance chefs... Emeril drives me up the wall. I appreciate honesty. Of non-celebrity chefs, I've gotta say that that the greatest influences on my cooking have been my mother, Julia Child, and my cooking instructor Chef Gabriel Claycamp at Seattle's Culinary Communion. <br /><br />In the last couple of years I've been typing up all the recipes my grandparents and my mother collected over the years, and am posting them here. Some of them are quite nostalgic and are higher in fat and processed ingredients than recipes I normally collect, but it's really neat to see the different kinds of foods they were interested in... to see them either typewritten oh-so-carefully by my grandfather, in my grandmother's spidery handwriting, or - in some cases - written by my mother years ago in fountain pen ink. It's like time travel. <br /><br />Cooking peeve: food/cooking snobbery. <br /><br />Regarding my black and white icon (which may or may not be the one I'm currently using): it the sea-dragon tattoo that is on the inside of my right ankle. It's also my personal logo.</p>
 
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