There are names in the history of gastronomy that evoke atmospheres of lost worlds, of craftsmanship fruit of ancient stories, of flavors and knowledge far from any form of homologation, of great passion and sacrifices, but above all of great humility and, at the same time, also of great intuitions and, obviously, of innate genius. The name of Alfonso Pepe in this virtual gallery of great personalities who have marked the course of Italian pastry, he occupies a prominent place.
The first of four brothers from a small village in the Salerno area, Sant'Egidio di Monte Albino, perched on the slopes of the Lattari mountains, a paradise of uncontaminated biodiversity thanks to a natural barrier capable of creating an ideal microclimate for many agricultural and livestock productions since Roman times, Alfonso Pepe, who died prematurely two years ago, had heard since as a child the passion for pastry flowed in his blood. After having trained at the Étoile and Cast Alimenti he had then called together his family, the Prisco brothers, Giuseppe and Anna, a partnership of affections and understandings from other times, and with them he had decided to open the pastry shop that would raised to the fore of the Italian confectionary world until the consecration in '95 with theadmission to the Academy of Italian Pastry Chefs. But that was just the beginning. Because this extraordinary character "with his skillful and modest craftsman, ready to learn every day and to teach proudly", as Gambero Rosso wrote, in a short time knew revolutionize the world of leavened products burning all the stages.
A panettone from the South that won hands down over those from Milan
First pastry chef to make a signature panettone in southern Italy, the only a win the Re Panettone Award four times, the most important in Italy, defeating, or rather humiliating, all the competitors from Lombardy (and calculating that Panettone is a historic Milanese dessert, that's no small thing) but also from Piedmont, (who have a lot to teach in terms of desserts throughout Italy), and so on. In his life he continued to collect many awards such as at the Palazzo Caracciolo Mg Sofitel in Naples where Igino Massari, Grand master of the art of Italian pastry crowned him for his panettone with apricots from Vesuvius and sweet Mel by Antonio Caggiano, a perfect mix between the Nordic tradition and the flavors of the south, or how, in the prestigious competition, "Slowfood, Dolce Natale" when its panettone obtained the first podium even beating that of Igino Massari.
But Alfonso Pepe in his desire to always put himself to the test was not only great in Panettoni: the pastry shop opened with his brothers in Sant'Egidio di Monte Albino quickly became a real own sanctuary of extraordinary sweetness, like its Colombe, its pastiere, its cakes. And even now that there is no more i his brothers Giuseppe and Prisco, who grew up with him, have taken up the baton dividing the fields of action to better focus on the excellence of the products, Giuseppe for leavened products and Prisco for classic Neapolitan pastry and chocolate, keeping up the family tradition always with an eye towards the new. For example, the gluten-free line which they have perfected over the years under the banner of the claim “It's good all the same” to meet the growing population of celiacs and lactose intolerant and offer them moments of sweetness.
It's just as good: the gluten-free line to give sweet treats to celiacs
With the usual humility – a family trait – they explain: “We have chosen to tiptoe, with great respect but with determination, into a new and unexplored world for us: that of celiac disease. We have chased this dream for about twenty years and we have achieved it by putting into it our ability, inventiveness and our over thirty years of experience in haute patisserie”. The result was a line of products that met with immediate success among lovers of haute patisserie from the Baba in a jar (in the Rum and Limoncello versions) to the Caprese (in the classic Chocolate version and in the Lemon version), from the Profumo della Costiera to small leavened products such as the "Panettoncino" for Christmas or the "Colombina" for Easter (in the traditional flavors, with Vesuvius apricots, Limoncello, Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, Pistachio), to fresh desserts without forgetting, last but not least, that the master Giuseppe Pepe has created a special version of the gluten-free leavened pastry in a cooking pot.
To give flavor to the Easter table of Mondo Food readers, Giuseppe Pepe proposes the leavened Pastiera Napoletana, another great intuition of Alfonso that required long experiments, once again an intelligent contamination between two kinds of pastry to give space to creativity and above all to taste. «When I decided to make the Pastiera Lievitata with 36 hours of leavening - explained Alfonso at the time - my first goal was to allow people, anywhere in the world, to eat one of my Pastiera di Grano as it was just made in our laboratory. Here, I developed the idea of combining the goodness of the quintessential Neapolitan dessert with the softness, portability and taste of a great leavened product”. After innumerable trials – recalls his brother Giuseppe with emotion – “with which he had results very far from what he had in mind, it was decided to abandon the project, promising to make one last trial, the decisive one. He made a few small changes to the initial recipe, followed all the levitation phases again, managed these traditional elements and put his great experience to good use in managing this delicate confectionary creation: it was a completely unexpected success!"
The Pastiera Lievitata is in fact prepared with all the ingredients of the traditional Grano Pastiera, such as fresh ricotta, cooked wheat, candied orange, fresh eggs, sugar, cooked buffalo milk, Madagascar vanilla, distilled millefiori syrup and, with the addition of Mother Yeast only, but it has a taste and a structure that only a great leavened product can give».
Because as Giuseppe Pepe likes to point out: "the task of us master pastry chefs is to combine the best raw materials and knowledge of Mother Yeast with a story that can help people travel with their imagination...and their palate!".
And this is certainly what can happen by creating this extraordinary testimony of great pastry art.
The recipe for leavened pastry
(for 4 leavened pastiere weighing approx. 750 g)
First dough
Ingredients:
flour: 1000g
sugar: 300 g
water: 440 g
egg yolk: 100 g
butter: 350g
natural yeast: 280 g
Procedure:
Give life to the first dough starting with a syrup with water and sugar, add all the flour and knead lightly. Then add the previously prepared emulsion of butter and egg yolks and then add the ready sourdough. Leave the dough to blend perfectly and put it in a cell at 28° for 12/14 hours, leaving it to rise.
Second dough
Ingredients:
sugar: 240 g
orange honey: 70 g
butter: 220g
salt: 12 g
butter: 200g
cottage cheese: 150 g
orange paste: 250 g
mandarin paste: 50 g
lemon paste: 50 g
Madagascar vanilla: 6 g
cooked wheat: 500 g
diced candied orange from Sant'Egidio del Monte Albino: 300 g
Procedure:
The next day put the perfectly leavened dough in the machine, string and add the
sugar, honey and, gradually incorporating everything, salt. Subsequently, add the butter and all the emulsion prepared with butter, ricotta, orange paste, mandarin paste, lemon paste, Madagascar vanilla and cooked wheat. Then emulsify everything and only at the end insert the candied orange cubes.
Shortbread
Ingredients:
butter: 400g
icing sugar: 200 g
almond flour: 100 g
eggs: 80g
egg yolks: 30 g
shortbread flour: 450 g
starch: 50 g
Madagascar vanilla: 3 g
Procedure:
Prepare the whipped pastry for decoration by combining butter with icing sugar. When the mixture starts to whip and increase in volume, add the almond flour and then gradually the eggs and yolks.
Finally, add the shortbread flour, the starch and then make only when the pastiera is well leavened in the pan.
The Pastiera Lievitata cooks at 165° for 45/50 min / it is pierced, soaked and then packaged
Wet
Ingredients:
water: 500 g
sugar: 500 g
millefiori liqueur: 200 g
Procedure:
Dissolve the water with the sugar and then add the millefiori liqueur. Pierce the leavened product with a pin and wet it slightly, making sure that the liquid reaches all parts of the leavened product. Leave to rest for a few days and then consume.
