Torta di Natale

[Carrot Top]

I came across a recipe for "Torta di Natale" in an old magazine. It was composed of puff paste, chocolate cream, chestnut cream, amaretti, and whipped cream.

It made me curious to see if there were other torta di natales online, particularly with chestnuts.

I googled torta de natale con castagne, and came up with some interesting hits.

This site had lots of offerings, though none seemed to resemble what I had been exactly looking for. The translations were fun though, giving descriptions of items such as:

Sauce to the chocolate, in order to accompany dessert and freezes to you

Easy cake to the chocolate: a good base for all the occasions, than to the occurrence is transformed in refines tartlets to you.

Charlotte mignon to the chocolate: the ideal in order to make blow on the hosts

Heh. Okay.

Anyway, lots of good recipes but none exactly like the original one I found in the magazine.

What is "Torta di Natale", to you? It seems there are many variations.

[Desiderio]

I dont think is a specific cake ,I never heard of it , sometimes they name something just for the occasion , since the ingedients are definately wintery type .Is there no recipe on the magazine ?If not you can try to make it out of the ingredients and if there is a pic just follow that.Make your own creation for a torta di Natale , wich is what I think it is.

[Carrot Top]

Yes, Desiderio, there is a lovely recipe which is why I was curious to see if it *was* a regional specialty in other places. It was in an article on Val Gardena at Christmastime, so I assumed that the "Natale" meant it was a Christmas cake.

I know many Italian Easter cakes, but not many Italian Christmas cakes. If the pastries of Christmas equal the pastries of Easter, then they might be a very very fine thing indeed.

Edited December 19, 2006 by Carrot Top (log)

[Pontormo]

Karen, you'll find a current thread with links that addresses Panettone, technically a sweet bread, but traditional to Christmas as I am sure you know. Because the dolce is mass-produced, I believe it's ubiquitous. You eat it in Prato, Venice, Bari.... Otherwise, each region has its own traditions which may very well vary from town to town and of course, family to family. I also imagine Italian-Americans may alter recipes, depending on available ingredients, dim memories and so forth.

For one beautiful example of a Christmas cake baked by Elie Nassar, see Post 131 from The Cooking and Cuisine of Emilia-Romagna.