Pampepato di Ferrara is a cake that has a very special past, seasoned with a pinch of great history and fragrant spices and where pepper has nothing to do with it. In the 1600s the nuns of the Corpus Domini Monastery of Ferrara, drawing inspiration from an ancient recipe of the great Renaissance cook Cristoforo da Messisbugo, created a cake to send to the great personalities of the time. Cocoa, which had just arrived in Europe in the hands of Cortes, was a luxury good, destined for the few and was added as if it were a jewel, a precious powder.
In the shape of a zuccotto (a kind of zuccotto biscuit), it is embellished with very fine almonds or hazelnuts, with tasty candied fruit, and is flavoured with fragrant spices; the top is then covered with dark chocolate. Thus the rich cake becomes the Pan del Papa. It is easy to understand to whom this marvel was dedicated! An ancient, poetic and lost language turns it into Pampapato and Pampepato.
For centuries the two names have coexisted and the substance has not changed. It is the dessert of Christmas, of the festivities, it is the dessert that best represents the richness and refinement of Ferrara. It is the cake that with its intense flavour and delicious aroma recalls the tradition of a territory with many stories and flavours.
