Seasonal recipes with cherries...

I mentioned yesterday that I have written a cookbook. It contains mainly Italian food, Neapolitan traditions, recipes that I have learnt from my mother and which have been passed down through her family, but also recipes that are traditionally Neapolitan.

Neapolitans have a great sweet tooth and there are bakeries all over. Pasticcerias containing, all kinds of goodies from rum soaked babàs to cripsy ricotta filled sfogliatelle are found all over Campania and do a roaring trade. The nuns around Naples are amongst those credited with inventing and producing a lot of the Neapolitan specialities that have become very famous and part of the fabric of Neapolitan cuisine.

I'm going to use my blog to plug some of these recipes, not only are they delicious but some are really easy to make too.

Seeing as it is June and there are lots of cherries starting to come into fruit I thought I would mention a few of the more famous Neapolitan (and not so Neapolitan) recipes that cherries are used in.

The first has to be the "pasticiotto di ciliege". The original recipe calls for cherries that have been preserved in syrup but it works beautifully with fresh cherries too.

The pie is basically a sweet pastry which is then layered with pastry cream and then filled with cherries. It is topped with pastry and baked until golden and crisp. It tastes beautiful warm but is mainly eaten cold.





When it comes out of the oven the pastry is decorated with the shape of the cherries underneath. This looks and tastes delicious and is surprisingly quite light too.