Pandoro Cheese Cake with Amaretto

Being foodies and recognised as such by our friends and family, Sheila and I often get presents to do with food.  This Xmas, one of the pressies we received was a Pandoro. A Pandoro is a traditional Italian golden bread enjoyed at Christmas and is baked in a star shaped mould and is traditionally served sprinkled with icing sugar and then sliced and displayed with each slice slightly offset to create a Xmas tree effect.

I decided to use the Pandoro in a slightly different way and I based my idea on a dessert we made about 2 years ago using panettone for a Xmas Dinner Party with a whole bunch of friends.  When making this dessert, bear in mind that it will serve about 10 people, if not more. It is big when finished!  The dessert is basically a Tiramisu/Cheesecake hybrid. Sort of...

We decided on having two flavoured cheese mixes in the dessert; the one being mint chocolate and the other a mixed nut and cherry flavour but you can honestly do what you like with this dessert.  

So to the  ingredients:

1 x Pandoro (or Panettone)

500g Mascarpone

500g Ricotta Cheese
100g Mint Chocolate
40g Almonds
40g Walnuts
40g Glacé Cherries
200ml Amaretto
200g Caster Sugar
Vanilla Essence

To start, I selected a suitably sized bowl for the dessert and lined this with cling film, leaving a large enough overlap to cover the base of the dessert when finished.  This serves two purposes: it allows easier removal from the bowl and protects the base of the dessert when adding weight to it in the fridge.

Next, I sliced the Pandoro into 1cm width slices and layered these into the bowl, making sure to cover the bowl completely. Next is an indulgent bit! You can use any tipple you like for the drizzle, but we just love Amaretto. You could even use coffee (espresso) or a thin flavoured syrup of your choice for this. Also, use as much or as little as you like.  We use about a quarter bottle when making this dessert and the alcohol hit when eating is just yum and feels quite decadent.  Make sure you soak all of the bread with the liquid.  

I really loved the star effect that was being created using Pandoro instead of Panettone, which is a round bread.  The aroma of the Amaretto was quite honestly making me salivate at this point!

Next, I moved on to the first of the two cheese mixes.  Grabbing the chocolate, I started finely chopping it all to fold into the cheese. Needless to say, a couple of small pieces had to be tested for quality control. Remember that you can choose whatever flavours you like to make your cheese mixes. If you used coffee as you soaking liquid, you might use nuts in one cheese and plain cocoa in the other to create a Tiramisu feel. If  using brandy, maybe caramelised oranges would work well in one of the cheese mixes.  The choice is honestly yours!

Once all of the chopping was complete, I added 250g each of Mascarpone and Ricotta to a bowl, added 5ml of Vanilla essence and 100g of sugar. This mix got a good beating to blend everything together.

The mix was added into the bowl with the Pandoro and spread out evenly.  A slice of Pandoro was placed on top, with little bits of the bread filling in any gaps and, of course, was liberally sprinkled with Amaretto!

Moving onto the second cheese mix, I chopped the almonds and walnuts into a rough small dice and then cut the cherries in half. This was added to a bowl with 5ml Vanilla and 100g sugar.

A good beating ensued!

The mix was added to the Pandoro dessert bowl and spread out evenly. Be a little gentle here as the cheese is quite sticky and thick and can easily pull or rip away the softer soaked Pandoro.

Add the final layer of Pandoro, fill in the gaps and, yes, you guessed it, sprinkle on yet more Amaretto!

Fold the cling film up over the base of the dessert and seal it completely.

Press down evenly and gently on the cling film base to compress the dessert a little, then add weight to it. I used a plate and a couple of tins. Place the dessert into the fridge overnight.

For service, remove the cling film base and turn the bowl upside down on your serving platter. Using the flaps of cling film created when opening the cling film, gently lever/pull the dessert out of the bowl.  Once out, remove the rest of the cling film and Voila!

You can now sprinkle on a little icing sugar or powdered cocoa, but not too much as you will lose the beautiful star pattern created by the Pandoro.

Enjoy!

We did...