Below is an ancient recipe, a dessert from times gone by that not even pastry shops make very often, the Zuppa Inglese. This forgotten dessert is still able to amaze and I assure you that friends and relatives will fight for the last teaspoon.
An ancient dessert whose paternity is debated between Tuscany and Emilia, which then became the official dessert at the court of Parma thanks to Vincenzo Agnoletti.
It is a dessert based on creams (custard and chocolate) interspersed with sponge cake (here I used soft ladyfingers, I prefer them) soaked in alchermes and black cherry juice and decorated with cream and black cherries. It’s a little laborious, a party dessert, but very, very good.
Let’s see how to do it, step by step. Here you will find the ingredients for 8-10 generous people (a 24-capacity cake pan)
Ingredients for the custard
- 6 egg yolks
- 300 g of sugar
- 90 g of sifted 00 flour
- vanilla (flavoring or scraping of the pod)
- 750 ml milk (you can also make half cream and half milk)
Ingredients for the chocolate custard
- 6 egg yolks
- 300 g of sugar
- 90 g of sifted 00 flour
- vanilla (flavoring or scraping of the pod)
- 750 ml milk (you can also make half cream and half milk)
- 150g of chopped dark chocolate
Ingredients for the base and topping
- Soft Sardinian ladyfingers, Pistokkos type (2 packs)
- Alchermes liqueur
- a jar of black cherries (Toschi or Fabbri)
- Fresh whipping cream 1 L
Start by making the creams, possibly even the day before so they will be well cooled. For the pastry maker, proceed as follows:
Custard: In a saucepan, boil the milk with the vanilla and half the sugar and then turn off the heat. In a fairly large non-stick saucepan, mix the egg yolks with the other half of the sugar, even just with a spoon.
At this point add the flour, I recommend sifting it, and mix well. Add the hot milk to the mixture (even all together). Cook in a non-stick saucepan over very low heat until it reaches a good density, stirring constantly to prevent it from sticking. Pour into a bowl and cover with cling film, adhering well to the surface of the cream, to prevent a crust from forming.
Chocolate cream: Proceed in the same way for the chocolate cream, just being careful to pour ONLY half of the hot milk into the egg, sugar and flour mixture, let the other half cool a little (it must not be hot) and keep it Off the heat, add the chopped chocolate and let the chocolate melt. At this point you can add it to the cream and put it back on the heat briefly, if necessary.
Another simpler method (you won’t have to wait for the milk to cool) consists of making the custard as indicated above, remove from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until it is perfectly melted. Cover with cling film and let cool.
At this point the assembly of the dessert begins. You can do it with a spoon in a large bowl (it’s easier to make) or as a cake as I illustrate in the following steps.
Line a 24cm springform pan with cling film, making sure that a little film protrudes from the edges to be able to “lift the cake” after it has compacted in the fridge.
In a deep dish, prepare a syrup based on Alchermes, black cherry juice (the one in which the black cherries you buy at the grocery store are immersed) and water.
Taste it to understand how strong you like the alcoholic flavor. Quickly dip the ladyfingers (without soaking them too much) and arrange them neatly on the bottom of the mold, without leaving holes.
Place a layer of custard and cover again with ladyfingers, positioned perpendicular to those of the layer below and add some black cherries.
Cover with the chocolate cream and so on with the ladyfingers until you reach just below the edge of the mold, finishing with a layer of ladyfingers. cover with cling film and place in the fridge under a heavy plate to compact until the next day.
Decoration
Remove the cake from the mold by delicately removing the film and place it on the serving plate. Cover the surface and edges with the leftover cream (yellow or black, as you prefer) and decorate with tufts of whipped cream and black cherries.
A more complex decoration requires that, after having spread a layer of cream on the surface, the remaining creams are mixed with the whipped cream to obtain chantillies with which the edge of the cake can be decorated with alternating cords, and then finished with tufts of cream and black cherries.
It’s a laborious dessert, but the flavor and success will repay you for all your efforts!
