Panforte
- Preparation and cooking time
- Total time
- Easy
- Serves 10
Ingredients
- butter or oil, for the tin
- 100g pistachios
- 100g blanched almonds
- 100g hazelnuts
- 100g soft dried figs, chopped
- 150g candied peel
- 100g plain flour
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- a good grating nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ground to make ½ tsp whole black peppercorns
- 200g runny honey
- 75g caster sugar
- 1-2 tbsp icing sugar
Method
- STEP 1
Heat the oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 2 and oil and line a 20cm springform cake tin. Put the pistachios, almonds and hazelnuts onto a baking sheet and roast for 10 minutes. Finely chop half of the nuts, then roughly chop the remainder and tip all of them into a large bowl. Add the chopped figs and candied peel along with the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and black pepper, and a pinch of salt.
- STEP 2
Pour the honey and sugar into a small pan and heat until it reaches 115C on a sugar thermometer. Alternatively, drop a ½ tsp into a glass of cold water. Leave for 30 seconds to cool, then squeeze between your fingers – it should be a soft ball. If the syrup dissipates in the water then it needs a little longer. If it goes into a hard ball then you have taken it too far. Pour the syrup into the bowl and mix really well until evenly combined.
- STEP 3
Press the mixture into the tin, smooth over with a lightly oiled offset spatula and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely in the tin. Dust with icing sugar and cut into slices to serve.
