Pizza Dolce is a special tasty cake traditionally served in Abruzzo on wedding receptions and family celebrations. It is made of slices of sponge cake soaked with liquor and coffee and stuffed with three different custards: egg, chocolate and almonds cream. Once covered, the cake is usually decorated with colored sprinkles or sugar paste flowers. Recipe by Abruzzo4foodies inspired by friend and home cooking contributor @dorianaebasta.
Ingredients (serves 12)
For the sponge cake: 150 g flour – 150 g sugar – 6 fresh eggs – baking powder – grated rind of 1 lemon
For the egg & chocolate custard: 1 liter milk – 10 egg yolks – 10 tablespoons sugar 50 g bitter cocoa powder – 100 g cornstarch – 1 lemon zest – 1 cinnamon stick
For the almond marzipan: 300 g sugar – 150 g water – almonds 300 g – 1 lemon zest
For the soaking: Alchermes liquor – coffee – whipped cream for covering
Instructions
1. For the sponge cake: beat the eggs with sugar until the mixture is compact and frothy (10-15 minutes with the help of a whisk), add the grated rind of a lemon and little by little the baking powder and the well sieved flour, with slow movements from upwards so that the mixture of eggs and sugar doesn’t break up. Bake at 180 ° C for 35 – 40 minutes. Use a mold 24-26 cm in diameter. It is recommended to prepare the sponge cake 1-2 days before use.
2. For the Custard: mix the yolks with sugar, add the flour and water down with hot milk, then add the lemon zest and cinnamon. Stir slowly on low heat until it thickens.
3. For the almond marzipan: make a syrup by boiling sugar and water for a few minutes, then add almonds and lemon zest.
4. For the Soaking: use milk to water down Alchermes liquor and coffee.
Assembling the cake
Mix the syrup with almonds, previously peeled and chopped, setting the consistency, then add the lemon zest. Separately, mix half of the still hot custard with cocoa. Cut the sponge cake into 4 discs, on the first disc, soaked (but not soggy) with alchermes watered down with milk, put the other half of hot custard (yellow cream).
On the second disc, soaked with hot milk, lay the almond marzipan, on the third disc, wet with coffee, spread the chocolate cream.
Finally, cover the fourth disc with whipped cream, it is suggested to prepare it before filling the cake and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
Decorate with colored sprinkles and leave the cake in the refrigerator before serving. It is necessary to stuff the cake a day before eating to mix all the flavors.
Enjoy this fab torta!
PS: if you’re looking for a video recipe of Pizza Dolce please have a look here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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