Name: Pandôçe (Pandolce) (Sweet Genoa Cake)
Yield: Makes 1 cake for 6 to 8 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: ⅔ cup/80 g golden raisins (sultanas); ⅓ cup finely chopped candied citron peel (lime, orange, or lemon); 1 large egg, lightly beaten; 1 tablespoon/7 g fennel seeds; 4 teaspoons/60 ml orange or lemon flower water; ¾ cup/85 g granulated sugar; 2 teaspoons/30 ml Marsala; ½ cup/60 g pinoli; ⅓ cup/40 g dried currants; ½ cup/60 g unsalted butter, softened; 3½ cups/500 g unbleached flour; ½ cup/60 g warm milk (about 110°F/43°C); 1 teaspoon/2.25 g active dry yeast

Preparation info

Makes 1 cake for
6 to 8
servings

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Recipes from Paradise

By Fred Plotkin

Published 1997

About

The Genoese do not like their pandolce compared with the panettone of Milan. They assert that their cake has medieval origins, while panettone is more recent. Pandolce arrived in London in the luggage of nineteenth-century British travelers who wintered in Liguria, and came to be known in England as Genoa Cake. Pandolce was originally prepared in Genoese homes at Christmastime and only more recently did it appear in bakeries. Every Genoese woman had her own secret ingredients that went into