Almond Tart

In Pescara they call their special almond tart - Parozzo. It is the typical almond torte in Abruzzo. When you go to Pescara you will find that every bar has one of these on the counter to have with coffee. The Abruzzo is one of the regions of the peninsula in which the gastronomic tradition is most rigorously guarded . Local cuisine remains that of the farmers and the shepherds, simple preparations circumscribed by the rugged terrain.

The name comes from "pan rozzo", literally clumsy bread. It should be more or less spherical and can be of different sizes but always with a soft dough, a delicate flavour and with the smell of the covering chocolate. Gabriele D'Annuzzio, who was also an able propagandist of the traditions of his people and of the Abruzze cuisine, was not unaware of the goodness of the parozzo and has dedicated some verses in dialect to it which are of scarce poetic merit but which come from a genuine populist vein. All the Abruzze sweets are simple and modest.

However, the recipe here is Silvana's own invention for Australians. She used to make the parozzo the traditional way but her customers found it too dry.

"So I decided to add the cream and still do the dough. So I make the dough into three layers filled with patisserie cream, one with chocolate and one plain and the top covered with chocolate and rum"

Pastry Cream

Ingredients

1/2 litre milk,
4 egg yolks
40 grams sugar
40 grams flour
rind of one lemon

Method

Beat egg, flour and sugar together , add milk and cook over slow heat. You must keep stirring all the time, add lemon peel and let the mixture thicken. You can't leave it. When cooked stir again off the heat until it cools down and remove the peel. Do not heat milk first (a lot of people do this as a shortcut) but then the flour does not cook properly. It takes one hour over a slow heat to do this cream properly. If you take shortcuts you won't get a good result.

Torta

Ingredients

7 eggs (one full egg and 6 separated)
90 grams sugar
100 grams crushed almonds (not blanched and not roasted, just normal almonds)
60 grams cooking chocolate (used at end for assembly)
10 ml of marsala or rum or sherry - according to taste (rum is best with the chocolate, but it is the strongest)

Method

Squeeze some lemon juice into the bowl in which the whites are being beaten. Then dry the bowl. This helps a lot, because the white is very delicate. Always do this and put in a little pinch of salt

Beat yolks and sugar together but not too fast. They should turn white and be nice and fluffy. Stop machine and then add the almonds and fold through carefully

Fold the stiff egg whites through the almond mix. Mix well but keep the air through it, don't re-beat, keep aerating.

Divide mixture into three

Set oven at 200 degrees C, not too high otherwise they will burn.

Grease three baking trays with butter and flour.

Put a third of mixture onto each tray. Make one a bit bigger to go on top of the layers.

Gently shake the trays to spread out the mixture, don't do this with a spoon because it flattens it.

Cook 15 minutes and then check. You may need to rotate trays depending on the size of your oven. And then cook another 15 minutes

Lift carefully off the baking tray with a spatula

Melt chocolate in microwave or, with very little water, on top of the stove

Divide the cream in half and combine with half of the melted chocolate

Put one of the torta (one of three) onto a large plate or tray. Put on the plain pastry cream and gently spread over. But do not take it to the edge because then when you push the layers together it will squeeze out.

Put on another torta and spread with the chocolate pastry cream, finish with top layer

After you put the layers together then you soften the edges of the torte with rum or sherry or marsala to stop crumbling. Use just enough to make the edges humid and to make the shape properly round. You can't bake it completely straight so it has to be moulded afterwards.

Dribble preferred liqueur around the edge and then press the torte down from the top to make the cake layers secure.

Take remainder of the melted chocolate (not with pastry cream) and spread right over the top and let it go down the sides to make a smooth rich coating

This torta will keep 1-2 days refrigerated

The flavour of this cake is best when served at room temperature. It needs no accompaniment.

Hints

Almonds for the torta should not be crushed like meal, they should not be too fine but be fairly soft because they are replacing the flour. The quantity of almonds depends on the size of the eggs. If the eggs are big, use more but not too many because then the mixture gets too firm. Don't use almond essence.