Quote:
Originally Posted by DOMINICK  I am trying to locate pastry recipes that I grew up with back in the 40's.
1) The Italian rum wedding cake.
2) Partichini pastry
3) Napolitan pastry
All help would be appreciated. |
Hi Dominick
I grew up in the boston area in the 50s (born in medford, moved to burlington at 4) - actually went to school with piantedosi's daughter - and my parents were born in italy and were brought to the states as children and grew up in the north end and in charlestown. Anyway, i never liked those italian pastries as a kid - too rum-soaked for me! Or too dry. But i remember them pretty well.
your number `1 is probably a genoise soaked in the kind of rum syrup like you'd use for baba' au rhum - it's fairly common here to soak cakes in liquer-flavored syrup. Then a pastry cream in the middle. I remember looking forward to desert when i'd go to people's houses for dinner as a kid and getting this, which i couldn't stand. Here in rome they tend to use the liqueur alchermes instead of rum, which no kid in his right mind likes, and they still insist on putting this syrup on the cakes for birthday parties. Growing up in an italian household where wine was always on the table, and grownups were always trying to get me to taste it ("just put your finger in it" "yuck! it's sour!") i ended up not much liking alcohol at all. It was never considered a problem to offer kids rum cake. But i hated it.
number 2 is probably a misspelling of "pasticcini" (pronounced pah-stee-CHEE-nee) and probably a typo or a misreading of a handwritten s as an r - but all it means is "little pastries" so i don;t know what it would be. Here pasticcini means little cookies, little cream puffs, little tarts. Maybe you can describe what it is you used to have.
number 3 you'd also have to describe - it simply means the pastry they make in naples, and naples makes hundreds of pastries - while caterina de medici brought italian pastry to france, the french elaborated them and brought them to naples, and in naples you have baba' and cream puffs and brioche and other stuff that is clearly french in origin. they even have "catto'" which is a mispronunciation and misspelling of gateau!
someone mentioned cream filled things which are probably zeppole di san giuseppe - at the feast of saint joseph they make what is essentially cream puff batter that is fried rather than baked and fill it with cream and with lots of powdered sugar on top - in march the pastry shops are full of them, and i remember them being sold in the north end too.
The one with the sponge cake and pastry crust and cream is what i believe they call a diplomatico. it's just that, thin puff pastry, a layer of liqueur soaked sponge or genoise, a layer of pastry cream and another layer of pastry with sugar on top
someone mentioned the cake with pastry crust and cream and pinoli - that would probably be what they call "torta della nonna" here in rome, and you can probably find a recipe for it. I can't imagine what bikki nuts would be - bicchi (which would be the italian spelling) doesn;t mean anything as far as i know. it may be an Anglification of something but i can't imagine what.
hope that helps.
Having the correct spelling helps with the google searches, so you might look them up.
Old Italian pastry recipes 
Bikki Nuts 
