VIRGIN’S BREASTS

(Minni di Virgini)

Makes 1 dozen

PASTA FROLLA CRUST (see note)

150 g/5 oz almond flour

225 g/8 oz flour (see note)

175 g/6 oz sugar

Pinch of salt

175 g/6 oz lard

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk if necessary

Zuccata or ½ recipe biancomangiare

1 egg white, beaten

Prepare the crust by mixing the dry ingredients, cutting in the lard, and working in the egg and, if necessary, enough milk to hold the dough together. Shape into a ball and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Roll the dough out to a 3 mm/⅛ inch thickness. Using biscuit cutters or glasses, cut out approximately a dozen circles 6 cm/2½ inches in diameter, and an equal number of circles 10 cm/4 inches in diameter.

Transfer the 6 cm/2½ inch circles to a greased baking tray, and on each circle place a small heap of zuccata preserves or biancomangiare. The filling should be sufficient to make a mound about 2.5 cm/1 inch high. Brush the rim of each circle with the beaten egg white, cover it with one of the larger circles, and seal the edges. Brush the outside of each pastry with egg white and bake in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes or until delicately browned.

Prince Fabrizio really wasn’t at all hungry, or he would have succumbed to the “triumph of gluttony.” This is another of the great convent specialities, but each order of nuns seems to have had its own idea of Waterloo, for the number and content of the different layers changes from place to place. One recipe I have seen called for a bottom layer of pan di Spagna soaked with rum, on which were spread pistachio preserves, followed by a layer of pasta frolla, then a layer of egg-custard cream covered with more pasta frolla and still more custard, each layer slightly smaller than the one below. Once this basic cone was formed, its entire surface was spread with apricot jelly, covered with a thin sheet of pasta reale, and decorated with candied fruit and chopped pistachios.

The only triumph of gluttony that I have actually tasted, one made by a convent in Palermo, was quite different but equally irresistible. There were five layers of pan di Spagna, each less than 12 mm/½ inch thick, which alternated with deep layers of what seemed to be just enough of a rather liquid biancomangiare to hold together coarsely chopped pistachios and candied zuccata. The coneshaped cake was covered with preserves—possibly pistachio—with a patterned decoration of candied fruit and frills and curlicues fashioned of pasta reale. A large green almond of marzipan was balanced on the top of the cone.

If its outward appearance was touchingly naive, within the golden stripes of pan di Spagna were framed bright green chips of pistachio and green-gold cubes of glistening zuccata, which floated in the pale biancomangiare like so many tesserae from the mosaic wall of an Arab-Norman chapel. This harmony of colour was echoed by equal sophistication in the balance of the flavours: the zuccata was a miracle of delicacy; the pistachio was present yet not obtrusive; the faint suggestion of jasmine gave context to an affirmation of stick cinnamon, crushed in a mortar and sprinkled over every layer.

Even if I were fortunate enough to have it, a recipe for this triumph of gluttony would be useless without the secret of the sisters’ zuccata. The best I can offer is a recipe for pistachio preserves, which are very simple to make. If you were to use them in a zuppa imprescia that was sprinkled with abundant crushed stick cinnamon, you would be brought close enough to a triumph of gluttony to feel that you were succumbing in style.