Like every dessert that represents Christmas for a city, Pandolce (u pandùce, in Genoese dialect) better known in the UK as Genoa cake, has its own story, or better its stories, to tell. According to someone, the oldest origins of this cake dates back to Persia, where the first day of the year it was tradition to give the king a sweet bread enriched with honey and dried fruit, which was brought to him by a child. According to others, however, the birth of this dessert is due to a competition for pastry chefs held in 1500 by the Genoese doge (the highest authority in the city) Andrea Doria. The challenge was to create a dessert that represented the richness and magnificence of Genoa and that at the same time had conservation a long enough to face long sea voyages. Anyway, it is a fact that for centuries our Pandolce, the Genoa cake, makes its theatrical appearance on the tables of the Genoese families every Christmas. Tradition rules that the cake is brought to the table by the youngest of the family who puts a sprig of laurel in the center, a symbol of well-being and fortune. The head of the family, the oldest, has to receive, cut it and recite the traditional greetings. The slices of the Genoa cake, then, have a precise order of precedence. The first is set aside for the first poor man who knocks on the door, the second is kept until February 3rd, the day of Saint. Biagio, protector of the throat. The third slice, finally, it is up to the family but starting from the mother, or at least from the one who has prepared the Pandolce, because she has to proceed with the tasting. Pandolce, in fact, until the early 20th century was a homemade cake. Every woman had her tricks and her secret recipe. While very few bakeries and pastry shop sold it and in those rare cases it was destined mostly for foreigners passing through. Although the name Genoa cake is mainly used in the UK, where recipes for it have been around since the 19th century, it is a variant of the Pandolce cake which originated in 16th century Genoa as a Christmas cake. Unlike Genoa cake, traditional Pandolce includes pine nuts as a major ingredient and uses yeast as its raising agent, which requires several hours to rise, like bread. This original form is now known as Pandolce alto, whilst a simpler variant which uses baking powder is known as Pandolce basso and is essentially the same as the Genoa cake sold in the UK, with a moist but crumbly texture. The term Genoa cake is also sometimes used to refer to two other Genoa-related cakes, neither of which are fruit cakes: Génoise cake, a light sponge cake, and Pain de Gênes (Genoa bread), a dense almond cake.
Pandolce “tall” bake. Naturally leavened. Bakery product.
Ingredients: wheat flour - sultanas 20% - natural yeast (wheat) - butter - sugar - candied orange and citron peels 7% (orange and citron peels 54%, glucose-fructose syrup, sugar, acidifier: citric acid) - pine seed - salt - flavourings - emulsifying agents: mono-diglycerides of fatty acids.
May contain: tree nuts, soya, egg.
Store in a cool dry place.
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