Lucca and Pisa: #Tuscan Zuccotto with Coffee and Chocolate Cream. Culinary arts, Cooking Classes and Tuscany Cooking... and a visit to Modigliani exhibition to start the New Year

It’s the 2nd day of the year 2015 and I too have done my own analysis of consciousness about how I behaved last year, on my successes and my failures, it is always room for improvement, incredibly, huge; )

I too have a long series of Good Intentions:

– Do not start smoking again (I stopped for 5 years)

– Go to the gym (early morning)

– Create a Tshirt for Cooks on Holiday (www.cuocheinvacanza.it)

– Try the new menu for our Private Dinners

– Enrich the Cooking Classes with new courses

– To be closer to my girls who are going through adolescence

– Improve this blog that I care a lot and try to make it useful for all my students (and not) in Italian and Tuscan Cuisine.

Let us not forget, however, that the aftermath of the last day of the year, when you wake up, the only thing changed is the date on the calendar. Even if we persist in being forced to find points of end and departure, our life is in the path we are taking … I think it’s better if we try to enjoy something during the gray, monotonous, routine days … because there is always a moment of “magic creativity!” within 24 hours … let’s give value to this and let’s make that moment longer the next day.

I opened this first day of the year with a nice visit to the exhibition of Modigliani in Pisa, at Palazzo Blu, together with my family.

While I was there walking through the halls with audio guide on my ear, I watched the works by Modigliani (great painter and sculptor in XX century), and I thought about how lucky I am to live near this beautiful “palace” that gives us incredible artistic experiences several times a year.
Modigliani lived a dissolute life of alcohol and drugs, but this has not braked his artistic genius and ability to capture the essence of the souls of the people he portrayed.
He lived in Paris for a major part of his life and I … when I hear the word “Paris” … beh
I feel the creeps mixed with pure nostalgia, for this city that hosted me while I was preparing my thesis and who I have never been able to forget. It was my father that introduced it to me the first time, and it is thanks him that I have this boundless love towards all that is “bohemian”.

Happy and satisfied of this experience, after the exhibit I went home with a great desire to prepare a typical dessert that was spinning in my head for a bit ‘of time.
This is what always happens: I need cooking something to express my happiness.

And so, paying tribute to my grandmother who loved so much Coffee, so typically Italian, I decided to prepare the famous Zuccotto with Coffee and Chocolate.
This Italian dessert, especially Tuscan, is served soft in winter, maybe in front of the fireplace; or in Summer, semifreddo mode, to cool off from the hot sun.

This recipe is dedicated to my students who return home, in their country, after the summer holiday in Tuscany. After the cooking class, many of them ask me to stay in touch, to continue to be a reference point for culinary experiments in their country.
This Blog was created especially for them, to guide them in the Tuscan recipes and Italian in general, to make them able to replicate a dish, once you get home.

This Zuccotto with Coffee and Chocolate is a wraparound, exquisite and successful, it is not difficult, you can not go wrong.

My passion are the traditional recipes, my goal is to teach you all the dishes you want to learn them.

So I recommend, try to make this dessert and feel free to make comments, questions, email me all your doubts and thoughts.
I’m here, ready to answer … let’s hear … I’m waiting for you !!

Tuscan Zuccotto with Coffee and Chocolate cream

Recipe by Erika Elia

Prep time: 40 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes + 8 hours to rest in fridge
Ingredients

9 ozSavoiardi Cookies (or Sponge Cake slices)
14 fl ozfresh cream
1,5 ozicing sugar
at willrum (or 1 cup milk and chocolate)
For the Custard
18 fl oz fresh whole milk
5 ozcaster sugar
1 ozdark chocolate
1/2 ozinstant coffee (powder
1whole egg
1 ozall purpose flour
1 ozbitter cocoa (powder)

Cooking Directions

Heat the milk until it reaches a boil
mount the egg with the sugar until mixture is frothy and create pale yellow
add the sifted flour and cocoa
dissolve with hot milk
bring to boil for a few minutes
incorporate the soluble coffee and chocolate cut in flakes (to facilitate the dissolution).
the cream has the right consistency when (as my grandmother used to say) it is still a veil on the spoon
cool the custard first to room temperature and then in a refrigerator
line the typical round mold for zuccotto (or that one for a pudding) with a film and let this come out from the edge (to facilitate the overthrow)
in a bowl, pour the part of rum with 2 parts water
with this wet drench savoiardi cookies (or sponge cake, cut into strips) and coat the zuccotto mold
whip the cream with the icing sugar and level it on the savoiardi or sponge cake
pour in the center the coffee and chocolate custard and close the mold with the last savoiardi or the last piece of sponge cake soaked in the wet
store the mold to cool in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours
in the summer, if you like ice cream, put it in the freezer for a day and then put one hour in the refrigerator