Back from Florence
Just come back from Florence where we visited a castle that dates back to the 12th century. The sun was shining brightly on the vines but the wind whistled around us freezing me to the bones. Luckily Tuscan food is perfect for this weather and we were soon warmed by bowls of ribollita - thick vegetable and bread soup full of cavolo nero (black kale). We also had venison in red wine and a semifreddo packed with chestnuts.
This castle is a potential new venue for our cookery school, it is beautiful and has so much to offer in terms of location, atmosphere and not least cooking facilities. We are keeping our fingers crossed it all works out for next year.
At the Viva Italia show at Olympia I promised to put the recipe forPear, Pinenut and Raisin cake on my blog so here it is.
Torta Contadina or Franca’s Pear Cake
Franca is a very good friend of ours and a great cook. She makes pasta everyday for the Buca Sant Antonio restaurant in Lucca. Then she goes home to cook for her large family. Her pear cake is quick, easy and always delicious. She changes the flavour frequently according to the seasons using fruits such as apricots, pears, plums, apples or leaving out the fruit and adding chocolate pieces and walnuts instead. My favourite combination is pear and strawberry.
Serves 8 - 10
200 g flour
3 whole eggs
200 g sugar
Seeds scraped from a vanilla pod
15 g of baking powder
100 g butter, at room temperature
125 ml milk
Grated zest of 1 lemon
80 g raisins (optional)
50 g pinenuts (optional)
2 pears, peeled and cut into eights
50g of chocolate drops (optional)
First prepare a 25.5cm (10) cake tin with parchment paper by making a cartouche a circle cut to fit the tin. I think it is prettier to tear the circle out so that you have rough edges and have it protruding above the edge of the tin.
Using a whisk mix the flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon rind and baking powder. Stir in the milk and mix until smooth. Add the pinenuts and raisins at this point if you are using them. Stir well to combine. Next tear the butter into smaller pieces with your fingers and whisk them in.
Pour the mix into the prepared tin and scatter or arrange (depending on whether you are going for the rustic or neat look!) the fruit over the cake. Push the fruit in a little.
Cook for 20-30 minutes at 180oC or until a toothpick comes out clean from the centre of the cake.
Tip: This recipe is much better done by hand rather than an electric mixer. There should be small lumps of butter left in the mix which will melt leaving holes that keep the cake light yet moist and buttery.