Although some of you may well be over the Christmas Day cheers and shaken berocca’s. I end the Christmas month of December sharing with you one of my all time favourite Christmas ‘sweet’ recipes. Of course this can be made anytime of the year as walnuts are available all year round now. However, it’s our family tradition to make it over the Christmas month.

Torta di Noce (Italian Walnut Cake).

This was our third platter made up of Torta di Noce and Florentines for our mixed ‘sweet’ platters of Chocolate Rum Balls and Christmas Sugar Cheer.

I’m also sharing photo’s of our family Christmas celebration – A Christmas Summertime in the southern hemisphere.

Our table was set with white and gold napkins and bon bons.

Roast Turkey and hot Smoked Ham

Served with Roasted Potatoes, Swede, Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, Beetroot and a variety of greens.

Roasted Smoked Ham in an orange sauce, homemade cranberry sauce and gravy….wow what a gravy, my sister excelled A+ (a recipe I have to share with you, it deserves a post on it’s own)

That’s Summer sunshine outside.

Torta di Noce (Italian Walnut Cake) is made with a beautiful short crust pastry, filled with ground fresh walnuts, sugar and the subtle taste of aniseed liquor.

Recipe: Torta di Noce (Italian Walnut Cake)

Pastry:

2 cups of self raising flour

4 oz (125g) butter

2 tablespoons custard powder

1/2 cup sugar

2 drops vanilla essence

1 egg

1 cup milk ( you may not use all of this amount, add sufficient milk to make a stiff dough)

Combine all ingredients in food processor until a soft ball forms. Roll out pastry. Line a pie tin with pastry and save a little for decoration, either for lattice work or border around top of pie. Trim the pastry edges and prick pastry base with a fork. I place my pie shell in a high/moderate oven for around five minutes, just sealing it.

Filling:

1 lb walnut

1 lb sugar

4 large eggs

1/2 cup aniseed essence

Blend walnuts and sugar together in a food processor. Separate eggs, adding yolks one at a time while continuously mixing.. Beat egg whites separately until fluffy peaks have formed. Add egg white mixture to walnut mixture – folding through until combined well. Pour this mixture into the pastry shell, with saved pastry apply lattice strips of decoration to top of pie. Cook in a high/moderate oven for 40 minutes or until set and a crust has formed on top of filling. Pastry should be golden.

Serve with a sprinkle of icing sugar.

Linking to

Foodie Friday: Designs by Gollum

Friday Food

Sweets for Saturday

Enjoy friends,

Yvette…x