What is there to do after school on a rainy afternoon? Or what do you do to lift your spirits and make your stomach happy as you long for vacation? Well …you can make our favorite cake “The Sacher Torte”!

My little boy tasted the Sacher Torte for the first time this summer in Vienna and he immediately fell in love with it! Over the holiday we tried many versions of the Sacher Torte even the original recipe from the Sacher Hotel.

The question is, “What is the best Sacher Torte?”

The answer depends on the situation in which you taste this delicious cake. For example, imagine yourself after having skied for three hours. Your cheeks are rosy and cold and your mind starts to dream of a delicious piece of cake. The Sacher Torte can surely be your tasty reward.

Can you believe that this great delicacy was modestly simply invented by a young chef named Franz Sacher? One evening in 1832 the famous Prince Metternich of Vienna had planned a grand gala and his head chef became ill. So it was up to Franz Sacher to prepare dessert for the evening. He decided to to create a chocolate cake filled with apricot jam and covered with a thin glaze of chocolate. The dessert was a grand success and in Franz’s honor the cake was named after him. From this date forward the Sacher Torte became an indispensable dessert for upper class European Society.

However, why can’t it be our recipe too?

The original recipe is closely guarded by the Sacher family, but many versions of the Sacher Torte have been created. So I along with my little chef created our own version too. In our version don’t be surprised by changes such as the addition of yogurt, extra virgin olive oil  instead of butter , only 200 grams of chocolate and strawberry jam which is my little chef’s favorite. Franz Sacher didn’t endorse this recipe but it is our original creation of the Sacher Torte…

You’ll need:

• 3 jars (small yogurt jar) of flour
• 2 jars of sugar
• 3 jars of flour
• 1 package of baking powder
• ½ jar of extra virgin olive oil
• 100 gr of dark chocolate
• 150 gr of strawberry jam

for the glaze

• 1 spoon of Honey
• 100 gr of 100 dark chocolate

The only measuring cup is a yogurt jar.

How to make it:

First in a medium sized bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar and yogurt until foamy. Melt the chocolate in a separate pan. Whisk in the flour and when it is incorporated add the oil , then the melted chocolate and finally the baking powder. Mix gently after each addition to ensure a smooth batter.

Pour the batter into a pan and bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees or until the top of the cake is golden brown and an inserted knife comes out clean. Another sign is when the cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Transfer to a cooling rack and let it rest for 5 minutes. Now slice the cake into two parts and cover each part with jam. Reassemble the cake placing one layer on top of the other. Next make the glaze by melting the chocolate and adding the honey. Cover the cake with the glaze.

Now your Sacher Torte is ready! Take a delicious slice and savor it slowly!

Did you know that in Italy more than 90% of basic products such as pasta, coffee, wine etc.. are purchased in mass-market stores? That means that out of 10 packets of coffee sold in Italy, 9 are sold in supermarkets and only 1 in a local shop.

This said, let’s move on to ask: Where are you exactly, when you decide to purchase a bottle of extra virgin olive oil?

Ok. You’re in a supermarket. There’s NO WAY YOU CAN SMELL OR TASTE THE OIL you’re thinking of buying and in front of you is whole shelf full of possibilities. The upper shelves are taken up by major BRANDS that invest in advertising. Their products are the most expensive. A lot of money and time has been invested just to convince you that their products are the best. Towards the middle, instead, you’ll find brands that are not currently being advertised, but that are still echoing in your brain. The supermarket’s brand is also positioned at this height but you know, of course, that the supermarket doesn’t happen to own any olive groves, so their oil must come from consortiums or great olive oil bottlers that buy olives in bulk. Here we’re talking about an AVERAGE PRICED olive oil. Lower down, almost at floor level are items that are usually selected because of their RIDICULOUSLY LOW PRICE. In most cases the brands are fake, it’s a two-for-one-sale or some other gimmick.

Now just think about this:

Someone, certainly not alone, must have spread a net under the olive tree, then climbed the tree and picked the olives one by one or handcombed them or used a pneumatic harvester, then gone on to select the olives, place them in crates, onto a truck and within 48 hours to the oil mill, where the olives underwent washing, cleaning and crushing with machinery that can easily cost thousands of euros and in the final stage, the oil was bottled, labled and shipped.

HOW CAN THIS KIND OF PRODUCT COST THE SAME PRICE AS WATER?

Now you can come to two conclusions:

Either the people employed in this production chain are considered slaves and do not get paid at all OR the oil we are talking about, comes from far away lands where wages are minimum. Now since a mass-market store doesn’t do charity (why should they?) but is aiming for a profit, at the end of your survey of the shelves, this is what you should do: DON’T GO FOR THE LOWEST PRICE.

If, in order to buy your oil, you’ve gone directly to the producer (be it a farm, an olive mill, a farmer, an agritourism, etc…), you have obviously decided that you trust the person in front of you. You have mentally resolved to buy and use in your home good olive oil, a health elixir, not just a dressing. Don’t rush, take your time to evaluate the characteristics of the oil, therefore TASTE it:

– Trust your senses, SMELL. In order to be extra virgin, olive oil must have no organoleptic defects. It must have a pleasant aroma, recalling green or ripe olives, a fruitiness with hints of apple, citrus fruits or almond and a faint scent of grass and artichoke.

– If the TASTE is slightly bitter and pungent, you’re on the right track because it’s a sure sign of the oil’s content of phenols and therefore of its quality. In about a year’s time this bitterness will slowly go away.

– Don’t worry about the COLOR. If you can’t taste the oil before buying it, don’t think that color will tell you much.

– a DARK COLORED BOTTLE is best for protecting oil from light.

– FILTERED or non filtered? Filtering means the producer has eliminated the residue from olive paste and water particles that can ferment with time. If you select a NON filtered oil, at home you’ll have to decant the oil more than once…but, of course, if you ‘can’t wait’ to taste that oil on a slice of bread or on bruschetta (heavenly!), go ahead and take a small amount of non filtered oil, to be used up as soon as possible.

– To know how to select EXTRAVIRGIN QUALITY OIL is not always an easy feat. That’s why, if you can’t taste the oil and you’re not an expert, it’s essential to know the producer of extravirgin quality olive oil you are dealing with. Everything the producer can tell you about the oil-making process and the product’s characteristics, will make communication very clear all the way from the olive on the tree to the oil in the bottle and that’s all the certification you need, along with, of course all the institutional and ….burocratic information.

– Last but not least: don’t trust a price that is too affordable. This applies to mass-market stores as well as to small or even very small producers. Prices reflect the whole production process. Higher the quality of the product and of the process, higher the price will be, inevitably. Extravirgin quality oil is a staple of our diet and is used daily: we deserve to invest on our health.

Celebrate Halloween is easy: a savory recipe, terrific jokes! And if someone exaggerates we smear him with the honey!

October. Halloween is coming. Celebrate halloween in not in our tradition, but we are happy to make a party… so we’ll make the trick or treat at home. I’ll prepare the trick and kids the treat. What does Edo do? Usually at the end of October the harvest is going to start, so he is busy in making olive oil. But when he comes back at home he eats the sweeties and pretends to be scared about jokes! For the occasion I have decided to cook a savory recipe, to make happy my little monsters.

Terrific cookies!

There are some habits that make you feel at home wherever you are, that give you tranquillity, a sense of affinity to the place in which you live. I has given my children one of these habits. So if they fall from the slide or they quarrel with their brother, all calm down with a cup of warm milk with cookies. I like baking cookies on special occasion.

I have followed my recipe of the short pastry, but I have replaced the sugar with the honey, because healthier. I didn’t have time to buy special form for cookies, so kids have cut a cardboard into the shape of bats and pumpkins, and then have they put on the short pastry and cut out with the knife.

On Sunday morning Saltapoggio kitchen had two small busy chefs.What about the stuffing? It could be only Dark!!!

You’ll need:

• 300gr flour
• 3 egg yolks
• 170gr butter
• 1 pinch of salt
• 75 gr honey
• some vanilla
• 200 gr of hazelnut cream

How to make it:

Prepare the short crust pastry: sift the flour on the pastry board, make a big hole in the middle and add the pinch of salt, sugar, cold butter into small pieces and the egg yolks.

Knead everything until mixture is homogeneous and smooth. Wrap it up in plastic and let rest in refrigerator for 3 hours.

Then preheat the oven at 190°C. Stretch the pastry and cut it into the shape of bats and pumpkins using the form done. Put the biscuits on a baking sheet covered with wax paper and bake for 15 minutes. Then stuff them with the cream and overlap a biscuit on the other to close.

Now your Terrific cookies are ready…..Taste them slow!

 This beautiful picture is made by my two little monsters. Don’t look it for a long time, you will be scared!

Take a pumpkin, the memory of a beautiful vacation, a great recipe that I’ve made more healthy. What comes out of it?

And then it happens, the weather is going to change, and we adapt at the new pace, at the appointment fixed, at the good intentions for the new season….So now after school the kids go home to play, and I feel like drinking a good tea, talking with my friends or sister.

Zucchini and tomatoes have left place in the vegetable garden to cabbage, spinach and fennels. Pumpkins triumph. Kids sowed some pumpkin seed in the vegetable garden with their grandpa. Now, after the summer cares, pumpkins are ready. One of them is really beautiful, ready to turn into the carriage of Cinderella! Too much grandiose to become a Halloween face, we have to choose another pumpkin for that!

I want to share with you a savoury autumn dish “Lasagne with pumpkin, speck and provola”.

We have eaten them for the first time when we were in Trentino on holiday. For not Italian people, Trentino is a wonderful region, where Dolomites mountains are. This recipe is so good that when I cook it, that it never exceed anything! In comparison to the original recipe, I have replaced the butter with the extra virgin olive oil, because healthier.

You’ll need:

Now your Lasagne with pumpkin, speck and provola are ready…..Taste it slow!

Would you like to make your cakes with honey? It’s a more natural, beneficial and nutritious sweetener than sugar. Let’s try, there are just three simple rules to follow.

Cook with honey….. I‘ d never thought to use this precious food instead of sugar, since my family has a honey maker! Then I’ve changed my habits. The first jar brought at home. The pleasure of eating honey from our bees. Little fingers dipped in the jar. Sticky fingerprints on the glass…

Besides just being good, honey is full in ownership: it’s less caloric than the sugar, it is more energetic and it has precious emollients and depurative qualities. Are these reason enough?

All we have to do is follow three simple rules:

1. Which variety to choose? The flavor of honey depends on the type of flower the bees worked to produce the honey. Multiflower or Acacia are the best, otherwise the flavor honey aroma will be too much present in your cake.
2. My Honey Hardened: What to Do? It’s easy to re-liquefy crystallized honey by removing the container’s lid, and heating it in very hot water.
3. How much Honey? Because honey is technically sweeter than sugar, less is needed to achieve the same results. A very general rule of thumb for replacing sugar with honey is to decrease the honey by half. If your recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar, try it with 1/2 cup of honey.

Apple cake with honey an extra virgin olive oil

Today I’m going to share the apple cake, one of my favourite dessert. It’s an autumn cake, and the flavour of lemon remind me the one that my grandmother was used to bake for Sunday lunch. Memories of a sweet past. Now I’m going to share it with you.

You’ll need:

• 300 gr flour 00
• 100 gr of cornflour
• 4 eggs
• 120 gr honey multiflower
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 glass of extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 glass of milk
• 4 apples. Any kind of apples can be used for this recipe
• 1 little envelope of yeast for sweets
• the bark of a biological lemon

How to do:

Peel the apples, cut them in half and remove the cores. Cut the apples into 1 – to 2-inch chunks.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with honey and the salt until they’re foamy. Whisk in the flour and when it is incorporated, add half the milk followed by the oil, the lemon, and the yeast mixing gently after each addition so that you have a smooth, rather thick batter. Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the apples, turning the fruit so that it’s coated with batter. Scrape the mix into the pan and poke it around a little with the spatula so that it’s evenish.

Slide the pan into the oven and bake for 40 minutes at 180 degree, until the top of the cake is golden brown and a knife inserted deep into the center comes out clean; the cake may pull away from the sides of the pan. Transfer to a cooling rack and let rest for 5 minutes.

Now your Apple cake with honey and extra virgin olive oil is ready…..Taste the pie slow!

Anchovies fry, with Saltapoggio extravirgin olive oil.

Yesterday my wife, Francesca, has bought some anchovies. We really like this blu fisch. It’s really good, is not expensive, and is full of Omega 3! Are these reasons enough to cook them?

There are several recipes of anchovies, but this time we have chosen the fried version.

As you can imagine, Saltapoggio family is used to frying with our extravirgin olive oil white label.

What a waste? Depends on the point of view…if you have appasionate about health and good food, come on! The extravirgin olive oil stand up to high temperatures better than the others oils. That means that it does not trasmit toxic substance to your food.

How to procede.

You’ll need:

400 g. of fresch anchovies

flour or breadcrumbs

evoo to fry

How to make it:

Remove fish heads and innards. It is easy to remove innards by running your thumb along the belly. Rinse anchovies. Pat dry and set aside.

Pour extravirgin olive oil in a medium frying pan, spread flour onto a large dinner plate and mix in approximately 1 tsp salt.

Roll anchovies individually in the flour, coating them on all sides and place each in frying pan of hot oil. Fry just until golden, cooking on both sides. Depending on the size of the anchovies, it may only take 1 minute on each side to cook.

Remove from pan with a slotted spoon or spatula and serve with lemon.

They are really good!!!

And you, how do you cook anchovies???

Oggi mia moglie e i bambini mi hanno fatto questa deliziosa sorpresa!!! _
3 uova biologiche
225 g di farina 00 biologica
100 g di miele Saltapoggio
70 ml di latte fresco parzialmente scremato 100% toscano
50 g zucchero di canna
35 g olio extravergine d’oliva Saltapoggio
pinoli
goccie di cioccolato
1 bustina di lievito per dolci
_
Montare le uova con lo zucchero e il miele, aggiungere il latte e la farina, l’olio, i pinoli e le gocce di cioccolato ed infine il lievito. Versare nei pirottini il composto e cuocere in forno a 180 gradi per cica 15-20 minuti… e buon appetito!!