Ingredients for the cake-
4 eggs
1 bustina vanilla - or a pod
1 rind from a lemon
300gr sugar
100ml sunflower oil
150ml milk
100ml vermouth white
100gr cornflour
400gr 00 flour
16gr raising agent for sweets
Ingredients for the icing -
250gr icing sugar
1 egg white
(add droplets very slowly of water to thin out if its too thick)
WATCH INSTAGRAM REEL FOR METHOD
Ingredients -
1 large bowl to add everything and combine and a large pie tin
About 5 sheets of puff pastry
1 leek (fry and place in your bowl)
1 egg
About 2-3 bunches of chard (boiled, drained, chopped and put in bowl)
500 gr of ricotta
3 tablespoons grated parmigiano (or grana padano - or anything you like really)
1 packet (180gr) fetta cheese (not traditionally Italian but you can subsitute with mozzarella if you prefer)
Salt and pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients. Place the puff pastry in your tin. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake in about 200c fan forced oven until the pastry is golden.
Buon appetito!
Click here to watch the instagram reel
Here is the amazing recipe for these super soft, light and fluffy ‘Graffe’ Napoletane. Hold on tight while your senses take a ride all the way to Italy and back with the first bite. The smell and taste of these scrumptious Italian donuts scream the local bar in Napoli ! Enjoy….
(and if you want to watch a snippet on my instagram reels click on the link - https://www.instagram.com/the_little_italian_school/)
INGREDIENTS-
Add all of the below ingredients (except the butter) in a bowl and knead all together until you get a soft, sticky but workable dough. You can do it in an electric dough mixer if you have one.
3 cups of flour
1 teaspoon dry yeast
2 eggs
Rind of 1 large lemon
Bustina of Vanillina (or a teaspoon of vanilla essence)
4 tablespoons of sugar
1/4 cup water (approx.) - add the water slowly until you get a sticky but workable dough.
50 gr room temperature butter
METHOD:
Once mixed, flour a board where you will now add the butter and knead again until it is all amalgamated. If you are using an electric dough needer, just add the butter and mix.
Try and form a nice smooth ball of dough, pop it back in the bowl and cover with a teat towel or glad wrap. Leave for 1-2 hours depending on the rooms temperature.
Once risen, take the ball of dough out of the container and onto a board that has been floured.
Cut the large ball into long strips to be able to join them at the ends to make the ring shape.
Once you have made the ring shapes, place them on a tray and let them rise for another hour or so. (depending on the temperature in the room)
Once risen a second time, fry them in some sunflower oil, roll them in some sugar, and take that sensory travel to southern Italy !
2 Eggs
1 Cup of ricotta
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 Cups Self raising Flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Grated rind of a 1 lemon
Handful bluberries (or a few more if you want more)
Mix all of the wet ingredients. Add the flour and mix. At the end add the blueberries and fold through.
Heat sunflower oil in a frypan and using a tablespoon, scoop the mixture and drop into the oil. Careful not to have the oil too hot or they will burn.
Pop the cooked mini donuts onto paper towels as you cook them so they excess oil drains. Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve and eat.
Here is a very simple Italian custard recipe given to me by my ‘zia’ (aunty), and all you need is a tablespoon to measure!
Ecco qui… (here it is)…
1 litre full cream milk
3 eggs
6 tablespoon plain flour
6 tablespoon sugar
rind of one lemon (or two if you prefer it more tangy!)
(optional - I decided to make the custard because I had lots of lemons left with no rind from preparing limoncello. So I used a cup of lemon juice and put in an extra tablespoon of flour)
Step by step
Pour 3/4 milk into pan on very low to start warming up the milk (don’t bring to boil).
In a bowl pour the rest of the milk, eggs, flour and sugar and whisk all together.
If you have optioned to add a cup of lemon juice, add this also.
Once the milk in the pot is warm, pour in the mixture and keep whisking to avoid lumps.
Soon enough you will feel the custard start to thicken and once it gets thicker turn off the heat. Once it has cooled and been put in the fridge it will set more.
We use eggs from our own chooks hence the very yellow colour
I used the custard to fill a beautiful apple and custard crostata. The recipe for the crostata base is on my IGTV which you can head to and watch using by clicking here
Quantity for 2 loaves or 1 loaf and some mini brioche with leftover pastry
1 cup milk (luke warm)
1 teaspoon dry yeast
600gr flour 00
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
Bustina di vanillina (or some vanilla essence or lemon rind if preferred)
Filling – Fig Jam (or any jam of choice or chocolate spread)
Melt the yeast in the luke warm milk (set aside)
Beat the egg, vanilla and sugar in a bowl (large enough to slowly add the flour later)
Add evoo and beat
Add milk and yeast mixture and beat
Slowly add flour and knead until soft and elastic
Place dough in bowl covered and leave to rise for an hour to two, making sure it doubles in size or almost.
Now you will need a rolling pin and a rectangular bread tin. If you don’t have a bread tin you can use a ciambella tin.
Flour your board and place risen dough on top and knead it a little getting back to a ball shape.
Roll it out with a rolling pin, into a rectangular shape that once rolled into a log, will fit into a rectangle bread tin.
Spread your jam over it, leaving a little strip at the top of the rectangle you can wet a little with some water so it seals up when you roll it up to close the log shape.
Roll the dough into a log and place in tin lined wth baking paper or some flour
(optional – beat one egg and brush the dough with it before baking)
Oven 180 degrees Celsius and bake for about 40 minutes or if you like a crust leave a few minutes longer
My kids asked me to make these Girelle di Cannella, so Sunday morning I woke up early to enjoy the beautiful quiet and have a little bake. I also popped a picture up on my instagram story and was asked by a lot of ‘dolci’ (sweet) lovers for the recipe so ‘eccola qui’ ! (here it is). The difference between these ones and the traditional ‘Cinnamon Scroll’ is that this one is an instant dough using self raising flour, and doesn’t need time to rise. The ‘Girelle’ turn out a little more like a biscotto rather than a soft doughy bun. Traditionally these are not Italian, but like many other recipes, we tweak things and make them the way we like them. It’s fun to be creative ‘in cucina’ (in the kitchen). Our family love these with the morning glass of ‘latte e caffe`’, and we always make enough to put a few aside for nonna and bisnonna (great-grandmother) to enjoy.
-2 cups self raising flour
-90gr chilled salted butter
-2/3 cup milk
Knead and roll into a rectangular (as best you can) thin layer (about half cm thick). You can rest it for 10-15 minutes if you like. It will be a little easier to roll out if you do.
-melt 60gr butter
-1 & ½ tablespoons cinnamon
-1/3 cup sugar
Spread it all over the rectangle you just made, then roll the long side of the dough inwards and all the way to the other side so you end up with a log.
Slice roll into pieces about 2cm thick.
Bake in oven 175 degrees until brown and cooked. (approx 20-30 minutes)
-1 cup icing sugar
-dash of milk (and stir through. If you prefer more runny then add more milk, less runny add more icing sugar)
Italian Procession - Riccia, Molise
Easter in Italy is a huge celebration, and like many Italian events it is a deep rooted religious one. Like all of Italy’s traditional celebrations, ‘Pasqua’ (Easter) time comes with some delicious traditional foods that are made throughout the country’s twenty beautiful regions. The most well known are, ‘La Pastiera Napoletana’, which is an Easter pie made in Naples, and ‘La Colomba di Pasqua’ which is a sweet dry cake similar to the Christmas Panettone only shaped like a dove, representing the symbol of new life. In Molise and Abbruzzo we make sweet and savoury ‘Fiadoni’. Here is a blog I wrote last Easter with the recipe: click here
Here are some typical Italian sayings that either refer to Easter or are taken from an event that happened during the Easter period but can be used all year round.
This means, ‘Christmas with your family, easter with whoever you like!’. While Easter Sunday is usually spent with family, Pasquetta (Easter Monday) is always spent with friends and usually by having a picnic.
A long as Lent - With the lent period lasting 40 days, this saying speaks for itself! It’s used to describe someone or something that is boring or drawn out
Happy as Easter. (Happy as Larry) - With Easter in Italy being a very religious celebration because of Christ rising on Easter Sunday, you can imagine the immense joyful energy in the air. New life brings a lot of happiness!
'To carry one’s own cross’. The saying refers to the pain and suffering by Jesus Christ as he carried his own cross, so it used to express when someone is going through a hard time.
One of the Apostles named Thomas said he didn’t believe Jesus had died and risen and said, ‘If I don't see the marks left by the nails in his hands, nor pass my fingers through his ribs, I will not believe’, so this saying is used when a person won’t believe something until they see it with their own eyes.
Piazza Gabriele Pepe - Campobasso - Molise
Molise. Where is Molise you ask? Well, that’s what a lot of people ask. Once upon a time Abruzzo was the name of the region until 1963 when the province of Campobasso was split to form another region known today as Molise. As a little girl I remember hearing my father say he was Abruzzese when people would ask what region he was from, because it was easier than giving a history lesson!
One of the reasons I chose to take my students to Molise was because apart from being close to my heart, it is not a tourist destination, and I wanted to invite them into our other ‘life’ in Italy, where we still have immediate family, our best friends and godchildren, our nieces and nephews. I wanted them to experience the true taste of local Italian living. The visit turned out to be even more wonderful than I could have ever imagined and I am truly looking forward to doing it all again very soon.
Cantalupo del Sannio - Molise
Our 5 day tour of this delightfully picturesque region situated between the Adriatic Coast and the Sannio and Matese mountains, with the Abruzzo and Puglia regions above and below, I drove the students around in our Fiat 500 and they discovered a winery that was brought back to life, spent a day on a friend’s farm with his family and made pasta, took a trip to one of the highest points in the region to a cheese factory, and visited a Countess at her masseria to taste her extra virgin olive oil, along with some very long lunches of some of the finest typical Molisani dishes served with a whole lot of love and pride. The most important part of the visit was sharing our local Italian life with this very small intimate group. Does it get any better?
Here are a few pictures and a description of how our days went. I will do my best to remember the details because I was too happy living and enjoying the moments to keep a journal and stop too many times to take photos. I am certain I missed a few snaps along the way. I must mention that everything we ate and drank on this journey was either produced by the host, or by a local neighbouring farmer, and our guests could taste it with every single morsal and sip during their stay.
Enjoy!
Riccia - Molise
The students arrived a day early, which wasn’t a problem at all, because in true Italian style nothing usually is. One of the best things about this visit was that the group was small and intimate, and the visitors were considered to be our guests rather than tourists. My husband and I were the guides so we could ad lib when we wanted and add in the odd extra aperitivo, or visit somewhere spontaneously that wasn’t on the ‘agenda’. It was very relaxed and as authentically Italian as can be.
The morning after they arrived we were headed to my sister in law’s farmhouse for a visit. She’d asked us if we wanted to go and make jam as the fruit on her prune tree was ready to be picked. We stopped by at one of the towns pizzeria’s, owned and run by a family who has been baking for over 100 years. You’ve never eaten pizza quite like it. We also stopped to get a bit of prosciutto, mozzarella and parmigiano to take to her farmhouse for a little ‘spuntino’ (snack) at lunch time. On arrival we decided against making the marmellata (jam) and instead went for a short hike through the woods to stretch our legs and breathe in some fresh Molisano air.
Before our orientation that evening (when the visit officially began) we went for an aperitivo and took a stroll through the historic centre up to the Castello Monforte. Later that evening we ate at a restaurant tucked away in the underground city of Campobasso, boasting ancient stone carvings and paintings. We ate melanzane al forno with ricotta, homemade cavatelli with cinghiale, veal medallions, and then enjoyed some deserts, caffe` and of course amaro.
On day two we headed off to Ripalimosani where we took a 4wd and drove through some hillside vinyards to see how this uncultivated land had been given new life by its owners, and how the wines are produced using no preservatives or pesticides. Back at the hosts home, we tasted all of their delicious wines, from Tintilia rose and red (a typical grape from Molise), to whites including chardonnay.
I’m not sure I’d call them ‘tastes’ as the pours were extremely generous, so it was just as well we were offered platters of bread, capocollo, salsiccia, caciocavallo and other cheeses, all from local neighbouring farmers.
After our visit to the vineyard, we headed off to our friend’s horse riding property where they also have a trattoria and we enjoyed a never ending lunch that was absolutely divine. Rosaria prepared many different local delights and the antipasto was full of variety including cacio e uova (cheese and bread balls), buffalo milk mousse and fiori di zucca. My favourite were her homemade ravioli with ricotta filling and a very light pesto di pistacchio sauce. The cantucci biscotti with cherry and lemon jam she made were so good I took some home for our breakfast the next day. From the pips of the cherries she’d used to make the jam, she also made a heavenly cherry liquor enjoyed by all. Waste nothing!
Day three we took a visit to our friend Pino’s farm who greeted us that morning with an espresso made with the moka (stove top espresso maker) and a few different homemade biscotti and crostate (sweet pies). If our guests had known what his mamma was going to prepare us for lunch I know they would have refused breakfast.
We were invited into Pino’s ‘sala dei lampadari’ (the room where all of the prosciutto is hanging to be cured) where he explained to us the process of how it’s all done (in Italian of course!). We also got a chance to taste it at lunch. Pino’s mamma then took us to milk the cow and use the milk to make some fresh mozzarella, followed by a pasta making class of cavatelli (a pasta shape typical of the Molise region) with flour made from their own grain. We tasted the ricotta she had made earlier that morning and all agreed it was the best ricotta we had ever eaten! After lunch we all had ‘la zoletta’ made especially by Pino, which is a sugar cube soaked in alcohol made from a variety of different herbs found on their farm, and was just what we needed to help us digest the 6 course meal we had just devoured. Then we took off up to the top of this wonderful village to enjoy the most supurb panoramic view of Italy, all the way from East (the Adriatic coast) to West (the mountains of Campania), and while up there we visited some churches and drank fresh ice cold water that was gushing out from the mountain side.
Day four was our cheesemaking day in Agnone. Near one of the highest points of the mountains in Molise (alto Molise) we were guided by the daughter of the producers of the famous Caciocavallo cheese, fresh mozzarella, and cheeses with tartufo and peperoncino (chilli) to name a few. The family have been making cheese since 1662 and we watched as they created the cheeses in their petite factory and then headed off to view the ageing produce in their cellar, along with a tour through their very own museum where we found out about the family’s history and ended with a tasting of some of their cheese. Afterwards we drove a little further up the mountain to enjoy another very long lunch by another gorgeous family, who when we couldn’t decide on which ‘amaro’ we would like at the end of our meal, they brought us out every bottle they had (there were around 6 from memory) with some glasses so we could taste them all. One was made with the ginseng root which is grown on their land, though we were told it is hard to find.
Day 5 and our last day was with the delightfully charming countess Donna Marina at her masseria, walking through her olive grove, seeing how the extra virgin olive oil is produced, bottled and labelled by hand, and ending our day with the most wonderful olive oil tasting imaginable. We enjoyed a beautiful light lunch of olives, crostini, pasta with chickpeas, and ‘la pampanella’ which is a typical slow cooked pork rib dish from San Martino in Pensulis, followed by some biscotti and caffe. On the way home we stopped by the family farmhouse to show our guests my fathers old school, which is pictured in what I use as my logo, and was the inspiration for starting up The Little Italian School.Just as well we had a light lunch because we had our aperitivo and fairwell seafood dinner in a quaint little piazzetta in Campobasso that evening where we enjoyed local wine and the freshest fish from Termoli (a coastal fishing town in Molise) caught that morning. It was a great night but I was feeling a little emotional knowing our guests would be leaving the next day, wishing they could stay just a few days more.
I am so grateful for the way in which the hosts embraced our visitors and treated them like family from beginning to end. It couldn’t have been more perfect and we are looking forward to taking more guests to this undiscovered region of Italy that continues to deliver its local culture and traditions in the most authentic way, with so much pride, love and passion. The locals can never do enough for you. There is a saying in Italy that goes ‘Il Molise non Esiste’ meaning ‘Molise doesn’t exist’. I can tell you that it absolutely does, and it has so much to offer. I believe it’s one of Italy’s best kept secrets and kind of hope it stays that way.
Termoli - Molise
You want to learn how to speak Italian but not sure where to begin? Well, a good start would be to learn as many nouns (names of things) as you can. In my Absolute Beginner Classes I also like to expose students to some Italian grammar. Learning grammar gives you a much better understanding of the language and gets you speaking a lot quicker than learning phrases. Exposing students to grammar doesn’t mean they should be memorising and mastering what you teach them in an instance. It just means they have seen the word or the rules and from that point on, each time they are re-exposed to it they may learn and remember a little more. Remembering what is learnt comes with practice by doing exercises, and it takes time.
There are two ‘verbs’ (doing words) in Italian that are taught in the Absolute Beginner course and I am going to write a little explanation on how to learn and use them. While rote learning may be a little old school, it may be a good way to memorise them, but if you have a method that suits you more then you should stick to it.
In Italian, we have verbs just like in English. Only in English, we don’t change the verbs 6 times to suit the person or object doing the action, or the person we are speaking about who is doing the action, like we do in Italian.
To construct a sentence we use lots of words and grammar. A sentence like :
‘The boy is beautiful’.
‘Il ragazzo e` bello’.
This simple sentence is made by adding a noun + verb + adjective …..or in simple terms subject + doing word + describing word)
So firstly you should learn your ‘subject pronouns’ (the subject of your sentence – who you are speaking about):
Here are the subject pronouns (meaning the person or thing doing the action).
I - io
You - tu
He/She/It - Lui, Lei, esso/a
We - noi
You all - voi
They - loro
Essere (to be) and Avere (to have) are the first two verbs we learn as Absolute Beginners
So the verbs Essere and Avere in English are used like this
io sono -I am
tu sei - you are
tui/lei/it e` - he/she is (notice the verb has changed 3 times already am, are, is)
noi siamo - we are
voi siete - you all are
loro sono - they are
example sentences:
I am Italian - Io sono italiano
you are French - tu sei francese
he/she is Australian - lui/lei e` australiano
we are Italian – noi siamo italiani
you all are Italian – voin siete italiani
they are Italian - loro sono italiani
I have a child - io ho un figlio (pronounced fi-li-yoh)
You have a child - tu hai un figlio
He/she/it has a child - lui/lei/esso ha un figlio
We have a child – noi abbiamo un figlio
You all have a child – voi avete un figlio
They have a child – loro hanno un figlio
These are very simple sentences, but if you have a few Italian nouns up your sleeve, then you can already start to make simple sentences.
The problem most students face when learning verbs is they get confused when the ‘subject pronoun’ (the person or thing doing the action), is replaced with a name.
For example:
He is beautiful – Lui e` bello
Gianni is beautiful – Gianni e` bello (He = Gianni)
Or a little more complex is when you are speaking with someone asking them questions and they have to answer changing the verb so it all makes sense.
For example:
Question: Do you have a child? - Hai un figlio?
Answer: Yes I have a child. - Si, ho un figlio.
Question: Does Chiara have a child? – Chiara ha un figlio?
Answer: Yes, Chiara has a child – Si, Chiara ha un figlio.
Note how the verb ‘have’ in the English sentences hasn’t changed , but in the Italian sentences it has because it is agreeing with the person in the sentence who is doing the action.
This is a very basic explanation and joining classes can be very helpful and would be the next step for anyone wanting to learn ‘la dolce lingua’. While phrases may be fun to learn, they are very limiting when trying to have a conversation. I always remind my students that they must walk before they run! So start your learning journey by building your Italian vocabulary and slowly but surely the language will all start to come together.
