Destination Anywhere

The smell from the results of page 82 of Dolce Italiano wafting upstairs even got my 17 year old out of bed at 8:30 on Sunday morning.

One large mixing bowl and four small bowls in the sink, around 10 minutes to put together, a bit of oven fiddling to edge the temp up to 350 for the last 15 minutes because my oven tends to run a bit cool, and a wonderful coffee-cake type breakfast treat. I had to make some adjustments, using regular flour, almond meal and sliced toasted almonds from Trader Joe's. Total baking time was 40 minutes, due to using a nine-inch pan instead of the 10-inch specified in the recipe. The cake has a nice texture--moist, a bit crumbly, and the sugared almond topping is crunchy and slightly chewy from the egg white. Great combination of textures, sweet without being overly so, and a subtle cinnamon scent.

A winner!

The dough for these was extremely easy. Just throw flour, salt, red pepper into the bowl, proof yeast in water and sugar and pour in, mix, add butter, oil and cheese, and mix again.

I love Aleppo pepper for its deep flavor.

Happy yeast

As suggested, I let my dough rise overnight in the fridge. In the morning, I let the dough warm up for 1/2 hour, and rolled out the breadsticks. I found the easiest method was to first roll the dough in my palms, and then finish it by rolling on the counter, beginning in the middle and then rolling to the ends.

This is a lovely recipe, and seems very adaptable. I actually had mini bundt pans leftover from my Family Childcare days (we used to bake on Fridays so each child could take home a mini cake). But since I then discovered I'd run out of cooking spray, and couldn't cope with greasing all those little nooks I used my large bundt pan. The mixture filled it halfway, and baked in 46 minutes. It easily came out of the pan, and looked gorgeous. It was fun to paint with the grappa syrup!

Here's a slice, with a dollop of whipped cream sweetened with some of the syrup, which I also dribbled around. Delicious! The downside of using the large pan is that you get less of the booze-soaked, slightly crunchy outer layer! Next time I'm definitely going to use the small pans.