Ingredients for the Pan di Spagna (sponge cake): As you can see from the photo, we used Vanillina, it’s a powdered form of vanilla extract and is used frequently in Italy. It may not be easier to obtain than vanilla extract, but you may be able to find it in a specialty food store. If not, vanilla extract will work equally as well.
Pan di Spagna is a base for several Italian desserts or can be served as itself alone with a powdered sugar topping, fruit sauce, or lightly frosted. It’s a light cake, so it doesn’t stand up to heavy frosting.
A larger photo of the Vanillina, in case you want to try to find it. If you’re in Italy or know someone going, it is very easy to find in any grocery store or market an easy enough to bring back.
Ingredients for the Pastry Cream
OK, this is all the ingredients except for the flour. Not sure how it snuck into the photo, but there is no flour in our pastry cream. This has to cool for at least 6 hours, which also means you can do it the day before.
The four components you need to assemble the Zuppa Inglese are the cake layer, the pastry cream, chocolate topping and liqueur.
Looking for a cake recipe, but not this one? Consider these:
- Carrot Cake with Buttermilk Glaze and Cream Cheese Frosting
- Chocolate Espresso Cake – Dairy-free, Vegan
- Chocolate Mousse Cake
- Decadent Flourless Chocolate Cake – Dairy-free, Gluten-free
- Olive Oil Cake
- Rum Cake
- Sunny Citrus Olive Oil Cake – Dairy-free, Gluten-free
Zuppa Inglese alla Napoletana
Ingredients
Pastry Cream
- 2½ cups whole milk
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup sugar
- 5 egg yolks extra large
- 2 tsp butter salted
Pan di Spagna (Italian sponge cake)
- 1½ cups sugar
- 5 eggs extra large
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1½ cups cake flour
- â…“ cup vegetable oil
Assembly and Finishing
- ¼ cup Nutella
- Grand Marnier or Cointreau or other liquor
- unsweetened cocoa powder
Instructions
Pastry Cream
- Heat milk and vanilla in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
- In a bowl, beat sugar, flour, and egg yolks with a hand mixer. Ladle a cup of the milk mixture into the bowl and beat to temper the yolks.
- Add the yolk mixture to the saucepan and beat over medium heat with the hand mixer until thick and creamy, about 1 minute. As you are beating, move the pot on and off the heat so that you don't cook the egg yolks.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat, add the butter, and beat for 2 minutes to thicken the cream. Transfer to a bowl. Let cool. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 6 hours. Do a day ahead.
Pan di Spagna
- Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350 degrees.
- Using a stand mixer, if you have one, beat sugar, eggs, and vanilla with the whip attachment. Start at a slow speed then move to medium. Whip until mixture is shiny, thick, and ivory-colored. It should have multiplied several times in volume, about 15 minutes. Remove the bowl from the stand.
- Carefully fold in flour with a rubber spatula. Pour in the oil and fold in until fully combined.
- Grease a 9-inch cake pan that is at least 2 inches high. Line the bottom with parchment paper and flour the sides. You can use a springform pan if your cake pan is not tall enough. Pour batter into prepared pan.
- Bake until cake begins to pull from the side of the pan and is springy to the touch, about 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes. It should be at room temperature before removing from pan.
Assembly
- Dust off all the crumbs and slice the cake into three equal layers. If you have a wire cake cutter that would be ideal.
- Reserve about 1/2 cup of the cream and place in a separate bowl.
- Brush off the crumbs and place the bottom layer on the serving plate. Sprinkle generously with Cointreau or other fruit-flavored liquor.
- To keep the assembly looking neat, remove the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan and place the bottomless springform pan on top of the bottom layer of the cake
- Spread half of the remaining cream on top of the bottom layer. Place the second layer on top of the cream and sprinkle this layer generously with Cointreau or other fruit-flavored liquor.
- Mix Nutella into the remaining cream and spread on the second layer. Place the last layer on top of the Nutella cream. Using the reserved cream, spread thinly on top of the top layer, then sprinkle with cocoa powder. Refrigerate until time to serve.
Notes
- Finely chop 8 oz of high quality semi-sweet chocolate.
- Heat heavy cream on stove until it starts to simmer. Do NOT let it boil.
- Pour cream over the chocolate, wait 2-3 minutes for the chocolate to soften and melt, then stir until completely combined.
- Spread over top of cake. You may want to refrigerate for 15 minutes or so for the ganache to firm up.