This wonderful speciality of Porto Santo Stefano on Monte Argentario is halfway between a fruit cake and something dense and chocolately, like brownies. It’s the kind of thing that you can’t find in shops or restaurants or even in cookbooks – it’s made at home by those who know the tradition best: nonna.
I asked a few friends from Porto Santo Stefano if they had a good recipe for pagnotella that I could try and they all came back to me with cherished, handwritten family recipes from their mother or nonna, each of them slightly different. Alessandra’s nonna makes this with some grated apple for moisture and keeps the chocolate in huge square-inch sized cubes, resulting in decadent pockets of melted chocolate like molten lava. Orestina makes a version with bread dough and insists on using homemade plum jam (very typical of Argentario, she notes). Valeria’s mother, Filomena, cooks dried figs in vermouth for her pagnotella, which otherwise is very similar to Alessandra’s nonna’s. The one thing most recipes have in common is that the amount of flour called for is quanto basta, or as much as is needed. This means enough to bring the sticky mixture together into a soft dough.
This recipe is inspired mostly by Alessandra’s nonna’s recipe. It’s quite soft, decadent and fruity – not to mention chocolatey. You only need a very thin slice of this, served with some dessert wine. It’s traditionally made around Christmas time (these flavours and scents are particularly loved at this time of year) and, much like panforte or fruit cake, would make a nice gift for friends and family, too.
Pagnotella is either made as one large loaf or a few buns, dusted in flour before being baked to set. A variation is to mix all the ingredients into bread dough instead of just flour so that you have a rather hard, dense fruit and nut loaf. All versions keep a very long time and just get better as they age.