For the almond biscuits
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
What you need:
250 g flour
225 g sugar
1 egg
2 egg yolks
125 g almonds
grated orange peel
vanilla pod
1 egg for brushing the biscuits
For soaking:
1/2 glass of vin santo dessert wine
What you need to do:
Lightly toast the almonds in a warm oven.
Put the flour onto the work surface and in the centre mix in the sugar, egg, egg yolks, grated orange peel and vanilla pod seeds together. Add the almonds and lastly add the flour.
The dough must be soft.
Make some little loaves, 4-5 cm wide, and put them onto a sheet of oven paper on a baking tray with a fold between one loaf and another, as they tend to widen and this will stop them from becoming attached to each other.
Brush the loaves with the remaining lightly beaten egg.
Bake in the oven at 180/200 °C for 30 minutes.
When they are cooked, take them out of the oven and let them rest on the baking tray for 20 minutes, before cutting them diagonally.
Take a round cake ring with a 15 cm diameter and put it onto a plate. Dip the biscuits in the vin santo wine and use them to make a 2 cm thick layer on the bottom of the cake ring.
For the Bavarian cream
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Cooling time: 30-40 minutes
What you need:
250 ml full-cream milk
50 ml cream
2 egg yolks
60 g sugar
vanilla pod
6 g gelatin sheets
300 g whipping cream
50 g sugar
What you need to do:
Put the gelatin sheets in cold water to soak.
Heat the milk and the cream with the vanilla pod seeds.
With a whisk, mix the egg yolks with the sugar. When the milk begins to get hot, pour some of it into the mixture and return the milk to the heat, bringing it to the boil. Then pour the milk into the mixture and heat it up, stirring continuously with the whisk.
Custard is very delicate and when making it you need to be careful that the temperature never exceeds 85 °C.
Continue to stir it but with a wooden spoon. You will know that the custard is ready when the spoon becomes covered in a whitish coating.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and cool it with some ice, otherwise the custard will carry on cooking.
Squeeze the gelatin sheets and put them into the custard, stirring all the while until they are completely melted.
Now let the custard cool down completely.
Partially whip the cream with the 50 g of sugar and put it in the fridge until the custard is completely cold.
When it is ready, gently add the two mixtures together with a wooden spoon carefully from the bottom upwards.
Pour the mixture into the cake ring over the biscuits and put into the freezer.
(the cake must stay in freezer for at least 5 hours before serving).
Preparing the sauce
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
What you need:
200 g sugar
75 ml water
75 ml vinsanto dessert wine
15 ml glucose syrup
What you need to do:
Put the sugar into a saucepan distributed evenly and melt it over a low heat.
Add the water, vinsanto dessert wine and glucose syrup and bring to the boil. When the sugar has dissolved completely, carefully pour in the water, the vinsanto and glucose syrup slowly and continue to stir until the sugar has dissolved completely. Put the sauce into a container and keep in the fridge for 2-3 days.
Assembling the cake
Preparation time: 20 minutes
What you need:
a handful of almonds
a handful of pine nuts
candied peel of 1 orange
What you need to do:
Take the cake out of the freezer 3 hours before serving it. Heat the cake ring with a sponge after holding it under hot running water, then be careful removing it and put the cake into the fridge. When you are about to serve the cake, heat the sauce over a bain-marie until it is lukewarm, add the almonds, pine nuts and candied orange cut into small cubes and serve.