A very "foolish" cake from Tuscany

The “torta co bischeri” is a typical cake from a small village in the Pisa’s region called Pontasserchio (roughly translatable as “Serchio Bridge”).

This cake is very special because is quite impossibile to find it out of this small area.

The word “bischero” means “foolish/silly”. The Bischeri’s family was the only family in Florence that refused to sell its own palace in the area where the Duomo of Florence had to be built. At the end, all the Bischeri properties were dispossessed and they didn’t get any money for their assets.

This recipe requires almost 2 hour to be done.

First of all make the shortcrust. There are a lot of different recipes, but the following one is my favourite because is not too fat.

250 gr of flour
1 egg
100 gr of butter
100 gr of sugar
baking powder
a pinch of salt

Knead together all the ingredients to get a smooth dough. Then put it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.



Ingredients for the filling:

100 gr of rice
½ lt of milk
50 gr of sugar
150 gr of dark chocolate
50 gr of cocoa powder
50 gr of pine nuts
2 eggs
cinnamon
raisins
candied fruit
liqueur of your choice (in our case, we’ll use whisky).

Soak the raisins in liqueur.


Boil the milk with cinnamon powder. As soon the milk starts boiling add the rice and cook it for 25/30 min.


Strain the rice and add chocolate, cocoa powder and sugar.



Wait until the mixture is cold an then add the eggs, pine nuts, candied fruit and raisins with whisky.



Coat a backing tray with the shortcrust leaving enough pastry to fold the border and fill it with the rice mix.


Decorate the cake with pastry lattice.
Fold the pastry on the border and pinch it as shown below.

Cook it for 40 minutes at 180 C.

It's just delicious.

New hangtags and QR Codes for our products.

Traditional products get up to date. Can an extra virgin olive oil produced on hills whose olive trees were there since the greek colonies (more than 2000 years ago) meet the newest tech and IT discoveries?
Yes.
We designed new hangtags for our products, mini cards with pictures that you can also use as bookmark.



On the back of the card we added a QR code sticker.



Zoom on it with your blackberry or iphone camera using the QR code reader and you will be automatically directed to the web product page.

It was never so easy to re-order your beloved food!

What have I found in my fridge? Another quick recipe for a delicious dinner. Ravioli with ham, tomato and cheese.

Another long day of work. Meetings, tastings and more phone calls.
Back home, what have I got to cook?
I passed by my lovely stockist Italo Deli in Vauxall (you MUST go if you haven't yet!). As always I have got their amazing fresh ravioli pasta. Today's filling is a classic: spinach and ricotta.



Back home I have:
Onion
Garlic
EV Olive Oil
Tomatoes
Fresh Basil
Salt and Pepper
a little piece of Prosciutto Bazzone (our bespoke ham)
more leftovers: a piece of young pecorino with herbs and smaller piece of mature pecorino



Let's make a quick pasta then.
Side A: Boil water.
Side B: Frying pan + ev olive oil. Let the olive oil get warm enough, then add chopped garlic and onion.





Let them get golden and add the tomato sliced and diced ham.



Mix all and stir it for 3-4 minutes. Add salt and black pepper. Another minute or two and turn off the fire.
Once the pasta is cooked (the fresh ravioli only take 4-5 minutes to cook) add it to the pan and mix it with the sauce (turn the fire back on).



At this time add basil and cheeses.





Mix all together for 2 minutes more.



And there you go.



This was so simple and with a good glass of red DOC Macchion Del Lupo it's just a perfect dinner. Nom Nom.