Sweets and wines to match for Christmas

Wines and creams according to Perbellini

The chef Giancarlo Perbellini, is known for the restaurant 2 Michelin stars in Verona and other famous addresses where you can enjoy excellent dishes, but not everyone knows that the Perbellini family it is also a “dynasty” of pastry chefs since 1872. The first office was opened by Luigi Perbellini in Isola Scala, at the time it was a simple baker but thanks to the help of his son Giovanni Battista it became a real pastry shop that gave life to the famous sweet Offella d’oro, a evolution of the typical Nadalin. Since then, the Perbellini world has evolved, conquering the most demanding palates with its cuisine and all lovers of sweets with Pastry, a fundamental part. Today the headquarters of the Perbellini pastry shop it is located in Bovolone, where in 1900 a sales point with coffee was opened, in addition there is also the pastry shop of Isola Rizza and the products are distributed in 400 selected retailers.

The combinations

Here is what they created for us as creams to combine with typical Christmas sweets and more … as a Christmas gift they gave us the recipe, simplified, of the legendary millefeuille that made them famous.

Pandoro

Classic Pandoro with 3 days of processing and 48 hours of leavening, processed and wrapped by hand. It fully follows the pandoro tradition, with the same ingredients of 130 years when it was invented. The combination is a classic: the chocolate cream which brings to mind the lazy afternoons of the Christmas holidays as children spent in front of the fireplace with chocolate and pandoro.

Creamy 66% dark chocolate:

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 133 gr milk
• 133 gr cream 35%
• 33 gr granulated sugar
• 50 gr yolk
• 183 gr dark chocolate 66%
• 10 gr dark rum

Method:
Step1. You start by creating an English cream: bring the milk and cream to a boil, when they come to a boil pour them into the yolk and sugar mixture previously mixed with a whisk. The trick: the mixture is well mixed when the sugar has dissolved in the yolk.

Step 2. Put the mixture back on the heat and bring the custard to a temperature of 82 °.
Step 3. Once cooked, pour it directly on the dark chocolate, which we previously melted in a bain-marie.
Step 4. With the help of a mixer create a smooth and homogeneous cream and finally add the rum, to taste, and mix.

Wine suggested: passito. It is a wine obtained from a natural or forced dehydration process. This does not mean that all raisins are sweet, that is a characteristic of the grape. The sweet passito it is obtained differently from area to area of ​​Italy but commonly the process is based on drying the grapes, concentrating them to obtain a high alcohol content.

Offella D’Oro

Christmas cake typical of the Perbellini pastry shop, it is so famous that it led to the registration of the trademark. It looks similar to a pandoro but with the addition of a grain of almonds. The Offella d’oro was born in 1891 according to an idea of ​​Giovanni Battista Perbellini, who decided to innovate the Nadalin, a typical sweet of Verona, by adding eggs, butter and almonds. The combination that may sound obvious is the zabaglione cream, but what better “pairing” could there be?

Eggnog cream:

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 4 egg yolk
• 65 gr granulated sugar
• 40 gr marsala
• 33 gr Muscat wine

Method:

Step1. Bring the marsala and wine to a boil, pour them slowly over the yolk and sugar mixture previously mixed with a whisk. Step 2. Then continue with cooking in a bain-marie up to a temperature of 83 °. NB: the zabaglione will swell during cooking, so make sure you have a pot with a good volume margin.
Remember to serve the zabaglione hot.

Wine suggested: Recioto. Sweet red wine, reminiscent of the passito, typical of the Valpolicella area near Verona. It is obtained from the drying of the grapes stored in fruit cellars in the winter months, where the fermentation is stopped to preserve the necessary percentage of sugar. The result is a sweet, fruity, round and refined wine.

Classic panettone

Panettone, the classic dessert of the Christmas holidays, remained faithful to tradition with raisins and candied orange and cedar. It remains leavened for 48 hours with sourdough. The combination is a mascarpone cream with a twist given by the lemon.

Lemon scented mascarpone cream:

Ingredients for 4 people:

Custard

• 150 gr Whole milk
• Zest of half a lemon
• 50 gr Sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 10 gr cornstarch

Creamy with mascarpone

• 220 gr 35% cream
• 220 gr mascarpone

Method:

Step 1. Prepare the custard by combining the milk, lemon zest, sugar, two egg yolks and cornstarch in a saucepan and bring to 83 ° C in a bain-marie, continuing to mix. When the mixture thickens, turn off the heat and let it cool in the fridge by covering with cling film.
Step 2. Prepare the creamy: lightly whip the cream in a separate bowl and add the mascarpone.
Step 3. Add the cooled custard, mixing everything gently in order to obtain a homogeneous cream. The trick for a good result: mix gently always in the same direction of whipping of the cream to prevent it from falling apart.

Wine suggested: Holy wine. This wine is grown mainly in Tuscany and is commonly combined with cantucci, traditional dry biscuits, which is why perhaps the combination with panettone might surprise. In reality, thanks to the high alcohol content, the vin santo perfectly holds the strong flavor of the typical Christmas dessert.

Author’s Panettone: orange and chocolate

It’s about a reinterpretation of the classic panettone, where instead of the classic candied fruit there are orange peel and dark chocolate. It is a more modern version that combines the scent of citrus with the intensity of chocolate. The proposal is a cream that completes these flavors, such as hazelnut and cinnamon, so as to recall mountain sweets such as Zelten or Linzer cakes.

Hazelnut custard with cinnamon and orange scent

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 250ml milk
• 62.5ml cream 35%
• 140g granulated sugar
• 87gr yolk
• 27 gr cornstarch
• 20 gr hazelnut paste
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 orange zest

Method

Step 1. Infuse a cinnamon stick and orange zest in the milk and cream for about half an hour.
Step 2. Mix egg yolk and sugar with a whisk in a bowl.
Step 3. Bring the liquids to a boil and pour them into the yolk and sugar mixture previously mixed with a whisk.
Step 4. Cook the cream to the right density.
The trick: cooking depends on the schools of thought, Perbellini prefers to go up to 85 degrees, but if you want a drier cream you can go up to a boil.
Step 5. Allow the cream to cool down to approximately 45 °, then add the hazelnut paste and mix with the immersion mixer until a smooth and homogeneous cream is obtained.

Wine suggested: picolit. This wine, grown in Friuli Venezia Giulia, is one of the most expensive sweet nectars, but also one of the most refined. The combination with the signature panettone, its chocolate, is perfect because it allows the Picolit to best express its notes.

The recipe of Millefoglie

Cake loved by Italians and symbol of the Perbellini Pastry which makes it unique with a top secret recipe. It’s about a a thousand leaves with a soufflé cream based on milk and eggs and completed with a grain of macaroons, all strictly homemade, even the macaroons! The name is misleading: the cake does not contain “stracchino” cheese as many think. Its name derives from the verb “weary” – in the Veronese dialect “stracarse” – since the cream collapses after a few hours if kept out of the freezer.
The Perbellini pastry chefs offer us a simple version that can be made at home during the holidays, perhaps with the collaboration of the whole family.

Millefeuille Recipe

The ingredients are all for 4 people.

What you need to make Strachin Cream

• 120 gr of egg yolk
• 180 gr of granulated sugar
• 60 gr of butter
• 3 gr of cornstarch
• 1 vanilla bean

What you need to make meringue:

• 240 gr of egg whites
• 69 grams of sugar

Method

Step 1. To prepare the “strachin” cream base, mix 180 g of sugar, cornstarch and egg yolks to obtain a homogeneous cream. Then bring to 83 ° in a bain marie and add butter and vanilla, mixing everything.
Step2. Separately mount the meringue with the egg whites and 60 grams of sugar.
Step 3. Then mix the still hot “strachin” cream base with the meringue.
The trick: the cream will remain frothy for a few minutes, so we recommend preparing it at dessert time and consuming it within 15 minutes.

Wine suggested: muscat. A classic of the Italian wine tradition, it is characterized by different types of berries: white, the most common (Friuli, Veneto, Trentino), pink (Alto Adige) and black (Moscato di Scanzo, Lombardy). The most famous and widespread is Moscato d’Asti, sparkling, has a golden color and a sweet but fresh taste, on the contrary Moscato di Scanzo is rare, considered an authentic delight.

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