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Video: Easter Colomba: Alfonso Pepe's secrets and recipe
2024 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 12:26
Via Nazionale n ° 2, we are in Sant’Egidio del Monte Albino (SA), on the slopes of the Lattari Mountains, just behind the huge road sign that signals the beginning of the small town stands a large "P" twisted on a bottle green background.
("P" stands for Pepe, Alfonso Pepe, who, thanks to typically southern ingredients such as citrus fruits, fruit from Vesuvius, figs from Cilento, hazelnuts from Giffoni and buffalo butter, has shifted the center of gravity of classic Milanese panettone in the South, stealing the primacy of the best in Italy from the pastry chefs of the Lombard fog).
A flight of stairs and then down to the laboratory of wonders.
I'm a bit late because I eat a pistachio croissant like the one in Pepe pastry shop it has its own rituals, its own tasting times.
And then filming on an empty stomach seemed too risky to me.
Alfonso Pepe has already been at work for a couple of hours, opens the door smiling and makes the necessary introductions:
"You see, this is my baby, without him doves don't fly."
On the steel worktop, its mother yeast, raised as if it were a baby, complete with a tucked cover.
Strutty, explosive, it is almost frightening.
Mastro Pepe began his career as a pastry chef in the back room of his uncle Gaetano, about 30 years ago, then the great schools, L’Etoile, Cast Alimenti, at the court of the highly esteemed Iginio Massari.
The French experience at Ecol, the lessons with Achille Zoia And Mauro Morandin, unrivaled yeast charmers.
In 1995 he joined the Academy of Italian Pastry Masters, enters the loop of doves and the like, studies them, improves them, never leaves them anymore.
“I was tired of those leavened products made with poor ingredients, more and more like biscuits, full of hard candied fruit and dry raisins”.
In a few years ago the Bourbon panettone the best of Italy, with that soft and intoxicating, very yellow crumb, the texture of the dough that is almost a signature, the perfect balance between the roundness of the butter and the aromaticity of the candied fruit.
He doesn't like pedestals, but he always ends up at the top of every list, on TV and carousels on social media, he prefers the (tiring) days in the laboratory with Prisco and Giuseppe:
“In the pre-holiday periods we begin to refresh the yeast at 6 in the morning and finish late at night”.
A balance consolidated over the years, continuously calibrating the recipes, according to the peculiarities of certain ingredients (the flours change from year to year, the yeast is alive, constantly changing).
One of these recipes you can find it below, the best around, without filters, explained step by step and immortalized in a video.
Observe the gestures of a professional, do not be hypnotized by the dance of the kneading machine with dipping arms and keep an eye on the whirling matter.
Making the figure of idiots is a moment, I tell you.
TRADITIONAL COLOMBA
dose for 8 pieces of 1 kg
Natural yeast: refreshments
6:00 am
1. Proceed with the classic "bath", cutting the natural yeast into slices and immersing it in a solution of warm water and a little sugar (1 g per liter).
When the yeast comes to the surface it is ready to be squeezed and mixed with 30% water, 1 part flour and 1 part yeast.
Everything is transferred to the cell at 28 ° -30 °.
9:30 am
2. Continue with the second refreshment, mixing the yeast with 50% of its weight in water, always 1 part of flour and 1 part of mother yeast.
It is put back in the cell in a controlled temperature environment.
2.00 pm
3. The refreshments phase is concluded by repeating the same operation (point 2) and setting aside a piece of yeast for the following day.
17:00
First Dough:
Flour 0 W 360 - 380 | 2000 g
Sugar | 750 g
Water | 1050 g
Yolk | 250 g
Butter | 600 g
Liquid butter | 150 g
Natural yeast | 625 g
Dissolve the sugar in hot water (35 ° - 40 °), add the flour and knead for about 10 minutes.
Add the sourdough, leave to string and incorporate, twice, the emulsion of ointment butter, liquid butter and egg yolks.
After 30 minutes, transfer to the cell at 30 ° for about 12-14 hours (or until the volume has tripled), mix with:
Second dough:
Flour 0 W 360 - 380 | 500 g
Sugar | 375 g
Orange honey | 250 g
Yolk | 550 g
Salt | 25 g
Butter | 650 g
Liquid butter | 100 g
Orange paste | 600 g
Cocoa butter | 15 g
Vanilla berries from Madagascar | 4 n
Almond paste cubes | 163 g
(1 part almond and one part sugar)
Cubed candied orange | 1000 g
Put the first dough in the machine and add the first part of orange dough. Then add the flour, let it string and add the second portion of the same dough.
Once all the ingredients have been incorporated, pour in the honey and let it mix. Combine the sugar previously mixed with the vanilla pulp, in two phases, and once absorbed, add the salt and the egg yolks emulsified with the butter and the liquid butter, in two / three steps.
At this point, add the melted cocoa butter and left to cool, string the dough until the "veil" is formed (min. 08:05 of the video).
Finish the dough by adding, in two steps, the cubes of candied orange and almond paste.
Transfer the dough to the work surface and let it rest for about 30 minutes.
Make the pieces (950 g of dough for a 1 kg mold), roll the dough (min. 8:44) by rotating it in your hands.
Form loaves as long as the whole mold and arrange in the central part of the cups.
Place the doves in a leavening cell at 30 ° for 6-8 hours and then glaze with:
Glaze for panettone
conservation: + 4 °
duration: 30 days
Ingrediants:
Raw almonds | 188 g
Armelline | 62 g
Toasted hazelnuts | 125 g
Sugar | 1000 g
Cocoa | 25 g
Corn flour | 25 g
Potato starch | 25 g
Albumen | 375 g
Raw almonds | q.s.
Sugar grains | q.s.
Finely chop all the ingredients and add the egg whites only at the end, by hand or in a planetary mixer.
Dress on the doves (which will have reached ¾ of the volume of the mold) and garnish with an even layer of almonds and granulated sugar.
Bake at 180 ° for 50 minutes (for the 1 kg size), skewer with special irons as soon as they are taken out of the oven and turn over (the metal sticks can be replaced with knitting needles).
Allow to cool and spread until the next day, pack.
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