These celebratory holiday cakes are among the crown jewels of the Italian baker's art: Panettone, Pandoro, Panforte, Torta di Frutta, Babá Rum. Joining this star-studded array we now offer our butter-rum pound cake, and chocolate bourbon pound cake which make up our rostrum of cakes and sweet bread desserts.
Panettone is clearly the most famous of all Italian cakes, its history is loaded with myth but this cake-like bread caught the attention of the world when in the late 19-century Milanese bakers perfected its production. Loaded with butter, eggs, raisins, and candied orange, it is airy and sweetly fragrant.
Panettone Piemontese differs from the classic high Milanese version mainly with the addition of a baked on hazelnut and almond icing or “glassa”. It also has a wider and lower silhouette. The actual cake is the same.
Panettone has a cousin from Verona, Pandoro or, literally, “golden-bread”—striking in appearance and conical in shape. This elegant-looking bread-like cake is, like its panettone relative, loaded with butter, eggs—It is also airy and sweetly fragrant, but completely absent are any inclusions or fruit additions. It has a devoted following who appreciate its delicious simplicity and versatility, as it is a perfect vehicle for jams, jellies, preserves, conserves and marmalade.
Panforte or literally, “strong-bread” is perhaps the mother of all fruit cakes: this unexpectedly dense fruit and nut cake can traces its origins to Crusaders heading on their long journey to the Holy Land. It is the city of Siena’s most famous and enduring contribution to world cuisine.
Our original Torta di Frutta (Italian for “fruit cake”) borrows from the panforte and is a dense and intense fruit and nut confection-- but differs with the addition of cherries, dates and walnuts.
Baba Rum, are one of the countless contributions Naples (Napoli) has given world cuisine. These small, brioche cakes are soaked in a real rum syrup and are intoxicatingly delicious.
Our all-butter pound cakes are liberally infused in rum syrup and our chocolate butter pound cake in a bourbon syrup.