Valentia Sulpizi shares a delicious Christmas Italian treat
Every family has Christmas traditions. Mine, as a good Italian, has always been cooking together with my family. The sweetest and most comfortable memory I have of my grandmother is when before Christmas we used to sit in the kitchen together and leaf through her recipe book. The choice was never too difficult because we always fell for the same dessert: what we call Tronchetto. It’s not a dessert you will find all over Italy actually, it’s more typical of the region where my family comes from, Abruzzo. It’s a delicious dessert, but very simple and quick to both make and of course, to eat!
This is the recipe taken directly from my grandmother’s notebook. I hope you enjoy it!
Recipe name: Tronchetto or Lingotto di cioccolato alle mandorle (Almond chocolate log or ingot)
Ingredients:
100g almonds
100g sugar
100g flour
5 big eggs
80g butter
Almond flavouring
1 sachet of yeast
50g potato starch
250g dark chocolate
Method:
First beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl.
Add the potato starch, flour, melted butter (50g), sachet of yeast, almonds and the almond flavouring. Beat everything well, pour into the baking tray before buttered and floured (we normally use a long and narrow tray to give the shape of a log or ingot), and bake in a ventilated oven at 170 degrees centigrade for 35 minutes.
In the meantime, melt the chocolate in a bain-marie with the remaining butter.
When the cake is cooked, take it out of the oven and let it cool a little before removing it from its tray, so that it does not break. When it has cooled down, carefully take it out of the pan.
Now it’s time for fun! Pour the melted chocolate over the log and cover it with the help of a spatula. To make it a little prettier, use a fork (or whatever tool you prefer) to decorate and draw patterns in the chocolate. I always make simple wavy lines to make it look like a tree trunk, which is why this pudding is called “tronchetto” (log) in my family. When you are satisfied with its appearance, leave it to cool until the chocolate has hardened. Now it is ready to be eaten!
As we would say in Italy, buon appetito e buon Natale!
