Teste di Moro
Small domes of pan di spagna soaked in rum, filled with chocolate cream, and rolled entirely in dark chocolate sprinkles. A single-serving fixture of the Neapolitan pastry tray — small, dense, and unapologetically chocolate.
Teste di moro are the mono-porzione end of the pan di spagna family on this guide — where scazzetta and delizia are full cakes cut into slices, these are baked or shaped small from the start, individually domed, soaked, filled, and coated. They sit in the same tray as sfogliatelle and babà at any pasticceria, easy to pick up one of and eat standing at the counter.
The construction is straightforward once you have the sponge: small domes of pan di spagna (baked in semi-spherical molds, or shaped from a sheet), brushed with a rum or Alchermes syrup, hollowed slightly and filled with a rich chocolate or pastry cream, sealed, coated in more cream to help the coating stick, and rolled completely in codette di cioccolato — small chocolate sprinkles — until no sponge is visible.
Small, dense, entirely chocolate on the outside — the opposite instinct from a delicate delizia al limone, and just as fixed a point on the tray.
The recipe
Makes about 8 individual domes.
Teste di Moro — rum-soaked sponge, chocolate cream, rolled in codette. Click to enlarge.
1 batchPan di spagna, baked in a sheet or small dome molds
300 mlCrema pasticcera, chilled
80 g, meltedDark chocolate
150 mlFresh cream, whipped
50 mlRum, or Alchermes liqueur
50 mlWater, for the syrup
2 tbspSugar, for the syrup
200 gDark chocolate sprinkles (codette)
1
Make a light syrup with the sugar and water over low heat, then stir in the rum once cooled.
2
Stir the melted dark chocolate into the crema pasticcera until smooth, then fold in the whipped cream to lighten it.
3
If the pan di spagna was baked as a sheet, cut into small rounds and shape into domes by hollowing the underside slightly. If baked in dome molds, use as is.
4
Brush each dome generously with the rum syrup. Hollow the flat base slightly and fill with the chocolate cream, then smooth a thin layer of the same cream over the entire outside of each dome.
5
Roll each dome completely in the chocolate sprinkles, pressing gently so they adhere and no sponge shows through. Chill until firm before serving.
Keep refrigerated — the cream coating needs to stay cold for the sprinkles to hold.
Related
Cassatina Napoletana
The other mono-porzione pan di spagna dolce, ricotta rather than chocolate. See
the full recipe.
Buon appetito.
