Torta di Tagliatelle, a sweet Tagliatelle Pie, is a tasty specialty of the city of Mantova.
Prep Time: 60 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 3/4 cups (330 g) extra fine unbleached flour
- 3 ounces (75 g) almonds
- 3 ounces (75 g) bitter almonds (if you cannot find these use regular almonds, and the nutmeats
- from 2-3 peach pits if you have them)
- 1 1/4 cups (250 g) sugar
- 1/2 cup less 2 tablespoons (85 g) unsalted butter
- 1 or 2 shots of sweet moderately strong liqueur, for example Alkermes
- 6 yolks
- A healthy pinch salt
- Butter and a little flour for the cake pan.
Preparation:
Make a mound on your work surface with 3 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt. Mix the ingredients and scoop a hole in the center so as to form a well; drop the yolks into it and make a dough, which should be slightly softer than normal pasta dough by the time you've finished kneading it. If need be, add a little liqueur to provide more moisture. Roll it out, though not excessively thin (not dine thin, but a little thinner than 1/8 of an inch, I'd say) and let it dry a bit.In the meantime, peel the almonds, mince them finely (if you use a blender use short bursts, checking often, lest the almonds liquefy and give off their oils). Brown them lightly in the oven, remove them, and mix them with the remaining sugar.
Butter and flour a high-sided, 9-inch diameter pan, and heat your oven to 400 F (200 C). Cut a disk from the sheet of pasta that's large enough to line the pan. Dust the remainder of the sheet with just a hint of flour, roll it up, and slice it into 1/8 of an inch (2 mm) slices, and unroll them to make the tagliatelle.
Sprinkle the pasta sheet in the pan with some of the sugar-and-almond mixture. Then lay down a layer of the tagliatelle, sprinkle with more of the sugar-almond mixture, and repeat the process until all is used up. Drizzle the cake with the liqueur and dot it with the butter. Slip the cake into the oven, reduce the heat to 360 F (180 C) and bake for 45 minutes. Serve when it has cooled.
Ms. Gosetti notes that the Mantovani also make a variation with just sweet almonds, which they chop and then combine with 4 ounces sweet cocoa, 2 ounces crumbed amaretti (not sure what the volume of this would be) and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. No sugar in this case.
