Renaissance Italy · Italy
Scappi's Torta Bianca
From Opera dell'arte del cucinare · Bartolomeo Scappi · 1570
Verified from original source
A Renaissance white tart of egg yolks, cream cheese and sugar perfumed with rosewater.
History
Scappi's Torta Bianca is a Renaissance-era white tart from Bartolomeo Scappi's monumental 1570 cookbook, Opera dell'arte del cucinare. Scappi served as a chef to several cardinals and Pope Pius V in Rome. His torta bianca typically featured a pastry crust filled with a delicate mixture of blanched almonds, sugar, egg whites, and often cream or milk, creating a pale-coloured sweet tart. Such dishes graced wealthy ecclesiastical and aristocratic tables in sixteenth-century Italy. The recipe exemplifies Renaissance culinary sophistication, with its emphasis on refined white ingredients symbolising purity and status.
Sources
- Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera dell'arte del cucinare, 1570
- Terence Scully (trans.), The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): L'arte et prudenza d'un maestro cuoco, 2008
- Ken Albala, The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe, 2007
- Gillian Riley, The Oxford Companion to Italian Food, 2007
Serves
8
Prep
25m
Cook
45m
Difficulty
Medium
Ingredients
- · 250 g sweet pastry
- · 10 egg yolks
- · 250 g ricotta cheese
- · 150 g caster sugar
- · 2 tablespoons rosewater
- · 60 ml double cream
- · Pinch of salt
Method
- 1
Line a 23 cm tart tin with pastry.
- 2
Beat egg yolks with sugar until pale.
- 3
Press ricotta through a sieve and beat into egg mixture.
- 4
Add rosewater, cream and salt.
- 5
Pour into pastry case and bake at 170°C for 40-45 minutes until set and golden.
