The scent of cocoa is unmistakable, especially when put in the oven, as it slowly releases into the air. But at the first taste it is the soft and velvety flavor of the almonds combined with the butter that conquers.
Ph. Machi di Pace - Trentaremi
Born on the island of Capri - as the name suggests - the Caprese cake is now one of the most famous Campania sweets in the world, while it was once a familiar dessert especially for those who, for some reason, used to visit the Sorrento Peninsula or the island of Capri.
You can prepare it with a fluid and perfectly smooth dough, or, like I myself prefer, chop the almonds less finely to better taste their flavor. Some can use a little rum in the dough, others choose its white and fresh variant, without cocoa but based on lemons, possibly coming from the some island. Caprese cake is a dessert with few ingredients: dark chocolate, butter, sugar, almonds, eggs, a sprinkling of powdered sugar as decoration. And it is strictly flour-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, almost food intolerance-proof.
The chocolate is the main ingredient | Ph. Machi di Pace - Trentaremi
Who would have thought that it was a mistake to make this chocolate cake one of the gastronomic symbols of the Blue Island in the world? “It seems that the chef Carmine di Fiore had forgotten to put the flour in an almond cake he was preparing for three American criminals who had come to Capri to buy a load of gaiters for Al Capone. The result was so good that the three Americans demanded the recipe and Di Fiore, after having baptized the cake "la caprese", began to produce it regularly, quickly obtaining great success and many followers ", says the Sorrentine writer Cecilia Coppola in her book “Zeppole, struffoli e chiffon rosso”.
Almonds characterize the taste of Caprese | Ph. Machi di Pace - Trentaremi
If you wanted to validate this story, the Caprese cake would have been born in the 1920s and therefore this year would have celebrated its first hundred years of life and success! But there are other and equally bizarre legends about the origins of this dessert, dated a little further back in time than the twenties. Accprding to another story, the caprese was born from a persistent request from Maria Carolina of Habsburg, wife of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, known as King Nasone.
Ph. Machi di Pace - Trentaremi
It seems that the princess often allowed herself some whim dictated a little by her status and a little by the age difference with her husband. One day, in the throes of a terrible nostalgia for her beloved Austria, she asked the court cooks to prepare her a sacher torte. But the chefs, all with a French culinary approach, did not know the recipe, so they asked Maria Carolina to describe the flavor and appearance of that dessert. And so, in an attempt to reproduce a sacher torte at the court of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, the flourless chocolate cake was born, which also conquered the capricious palate of Maria Carolina.
Whether they are the Bourbons or Al Capone, the Caprese cake does this too: it makes us smile!