I always thought that Panforte had to contain chocolate. I loved it when other people made it but never really felt inspired to make my own – There was always enough chocolate around our house at Christmas to sink a ship. When I started researching the history of Panforte though, I discovered that it doesn’t HAVE to have cocoa or chocolate, that just seems to be a popular combination. I set off to make my own recipe and came up with this.
There’s not many recipes that I say, you must wait a few days before eating but this is definitely one of them. Left in a tin for approx 5 days helps the flavours to melt together and the bars to soften up – believe me, your teeth will thank me for waiting!
PLEASE NOTE: This recipe should also include 100g of finely chopped dates which are added to the Nut and Cherry mixture. For the life of me I cannot find how to edit the recipe plugin!
Panforte – Nibbles for Visitors
Ingredients
- 200 g Nuts I spread mine fairly equally between Pecan, Almonds & Macadamia Whole hazelnuts & Walnuts work equally well.
- 50 g Glace Cherries
- 1 tsp Mixed Spice
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 150 g Dark Soft Brown Sugar
- 40 g Butter
- 150 g Runny Honey
- 75 g Plain Flour
- Large Pinch of Ground Pepper White or Black
- Icing Sugar to sprinkle on before serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160C
- Chop some of the bigger nuts into halves - I like a mixture of big and small nuts to remain in the bars. Chop the cherries into halves too.
- In a large saucepan over a medium heat, melt the butter and the sugar until the sugar has just dissolved.
- Add in the honey.
- Take off the heat and add the flour and the spices and mix until just combined.
- Add to the Nuts and Cherry mix until all the ingredients are evenly distributed. It will be a really tough mixture so use some elbow grease.
- I added mine to a 9" square silicone cake tin and pressed it down. If you are using a metal tin you will need to grease and line it.
- Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes - do not allow to catch on the corners, check after 30 mins.
- As soon as it comes out of the oven, make lines where you are going to divide the mixture into portions - This will make it easier to cut when it is cool.
- Allow to cool fully in the tin and break into small portions - Mine in the picture are quite large!
- If you can leave in a air proof tin for around 4-5 days
- Dust with Icing Sugar just before serving.
What a lovely recipe, the panforte looks delicious. #recipeoftheweek.
Thank you, Julie. We are down to the last slice – Am having withdrawal symptoms already! x
Nutty, spicy and sweet. Yep, I’d like a slice please! Thanks very much for joining in with #recipeoftheweek. I’ve Pinned and tweeted this post and there’s a fresh linky live now. Please do join in! 😀
I really do love those recipe and have meant to make Panforte but have never managed it! Now I have enough dried fruits & nuts in the cupboard to give this a go and I love the sound of it, especially with the added spices and sweet sticky dates. A lovely One Ingredient entry, thanks 🙂