While food often remind us of the ones we love and loved, it can also trigger our endearment for a place. A holiday destination with neon vivid sunsets and appetizers of local cheeses drizzled with honey. A local café where you met your soulmate, and that happens to bake a decadent chocolate banana bread. Or, as my incredibly talented and artistic sister-in-law has shared, it can be your hometown, where some of your most memorable food moments were born.

Silvia is a gifted soul in many regards, and I am so blessed she has shared this story reflecting her affection for the island at the bottom of the boot. An annual tradition that has made its way from the family kitchen table in Sicily to her new home in London.

This is a story of seasonal sweets, humble autumn dinners, and baked copper.

*The Amato’s Celebrating Mum’s Birthday*

Every year, the start of Autumn marks a moment that brings me back in time to my childhood in Catania, the city in Sicily nestled between the volcano Etna and the Ionian Sea, where I was born. This is the time of the year when every pastry shop and even every bakery in Catania starts making small luscious chocolate cakes called rame di Napoli, which in English would translate as ‘copper of Naples’. They are like soft chocolate cookies with a hint of cinnamon, cloves and orange zest, traditionally covered with orange marmalade and topped with a dark chocolate ganache and pistachio crumbs. Just describing them makes my mouth water.

They are typical of the weeks leading to All Souls’ Day – 2nd November, you cannot find them at any other time of the year – and the origin of their names is not quite clear. As the legend – actually one of the legends – goes, their name possibly derives from when the Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples back in 1816 to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. On this occasion, a new coin made of copper was purportedly minted to replace a more valuable coin made of a gold and silver alloy, and the people of Catania allegedly created the rame di Napoli as a dessert recipe that would represent the new coin.

*Silvia on a school trip to Siracusa, circa mid-90s*

When I was a kid, almost every evening my dad used to go buy fresh bread for the dinner – because a meal without bread would be unbearable in almost any Sicilian home – and, at this time of the year, he would often get back home from the bakery with a bag full of bread in one hand, and the other one holding a guantiera - a tray – full of rame di Napoli of different kinds. There would be the traditional ones with orange marmalade, dark chocolate ganache and pistachio crumbs, and there would also be variations including those with Nutella, dark chocolate ganache and hazelnut crumbs, or even those with pistachio cream and white chocolate ganache (for Stefano, my brother, who inexplicably does not like dark chocolate). The chocolate, orange and spices melting in my mouth were like an explosion of taste, which has ever since been linked in my mind to this time of the year - when the days are getting shorter and the weather is getting chillier - and the comforting memories of my family reunited at the kitchen table at the end of the dinner to enjoy together these delicious soft cookies.

I now live in London, but since Brexit has made rame di Napoli travelling from Sicily to the UK a bit too expensive, I started making my own, and here is the recipe for you! It may seem a bit laborious, but do not be daunted by it, you will be rewarded with amazing taste and a boost of energy!

Rame di Napoli

Ingredients

Cookie Base -

500 grams white flour
200 grams sugar
150 grams butter
300 ml milk
80 grams cocoa powder
16 grams baking powder
1 tbsp orange blossom honey
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Zest of one orange
Orange marmalade, or Nutella, or pistachio cream, to cover the rame cookie base

For the ganache -

300 grams dark or white chocolate
60 grams butter
Pistachio or hazelnuts crumbs.

Method

Melt the butter in a bain-marie, add the honey and then the milk. Add the sugar. Mix well and then add the flour, cocoa powder, spices, baking powder and ground orange zest. Mix energetically with a wooden spoon until you get a thick and sticky dough. Leave the dough to rest for about 30 minutes in the fridge. Turn the oven on and set it to 180 degrees.
Take a scoop of dough with a spoon and work it with your hands to make an oval shape. Repeat this step until you have used up the whole dough and laid the ovals made with the dough on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
The cookies will double their size while baking, so make sure to leave enough space between them. Cook the cookies for 20 minutes then leave them to cool down.
Cover the cookies with either orange marmalade, Nutella or pistachio cream, then apply the chocolate ganache made by melting dark or white chocolate in a bain-marie with the butter. Garnish with pistachio or hazelnut crumbs.
As I mentioned earlier, the typical rame di Napoli would be made in the following combinations: with orange marmalade covered with dark chocolate ganache and pistachio crumbs, or Nutella and dark chocolate and hazelnut crumbs, or pistachio cream and white chocolate with pistachio crumbs, but you can get creative!
This recipe makes between 20-22 rame

Just describing them makes my mouth water

Nothing super fancy, but it was what you’d imagine a taste of home to be

…satisfactory but missing a key ingredient