Spungata
Features: Round cake with a sponge-like aspect: riddled and irregular in its upper part. Cream-colored sheet of pasta dough with superficial coating.
Preparation: Ingredients: 400g flour, 250g honey, 250g walnuts, 200g sugar, 2 glasses white wine, 100g rusks (optional), 100g butter, 75g almonds, 75g hazelnuts, 75g walnuts, 50g raisins, 50g candied cedar, 50g candied orange peel, baked apples and pears, 50g powdered sugar, 50g pine nuts, 1 spoonful liquor, spices, salt. Peel the almonds soaking them in hot water and break the rusks. Toast the hazelnuts and crush them together with the walnuts. Soften raisins in mild water. Cut the cedar and the orange peel. Crush the almonds in the mortar, together with sugar and pine nuts. In a stewpan, boil honey with a part of the wine. Mix everything together, sprinkle with liquor and spices. Leave standing for at least one day. Prepare the dough with flour, sugar, a pinch of salt, melted butter, and the remaining wine. Leave standing for at least 30 minutes. Roll out the sheet of pasta dough to obtain two strata. Use wooden round molds of different sizes where you will lay down the first stratum, the mixture, and the second stratum. Unite the edges of the two strata in order to maintain the filling inside. Cover the upper sheet of pasta dough with frosting and make holes in it in order to favor the cooking. Put in the oven at a temperature of 200°C for 30-40 minutes. Once it is cold, sprinkle it with powdered sugar. Before eating it, it is recommended to put it in the oven at a temperature of 100°C for a few minutes, in order to soften the filling and make the sheet of pasta dough more crunchy. In Seborga there is another version of this cake: it has similar ingredients - except for the presence of plum jam, Rossese di Dolceacqua wine, and sometimes zabaglione.
Production Area: Sarzana and inland of La Spezia.
Curiosities: At the time of the Romans there was a cake similar to our spungata, prepared with honey and riddled. It was used as a gift on New Year's Day. The name spungata derives from Latin and means sponge, probably for its aspect.
