Is it possible that Swiss and German cuisine has influenced some of Italian traditional Christmas dishes? Yes, if we are in Mantua and we taste two of the yummiest delicacies of Mantua's cuisine: l’Anello di Monaco (literally: ring from Munich) and the Elvezia cake.
Icing, butter, and dried fruit
Anello di Monaco closely resembles the Milanese panettone. It has the appearance of a large doughnut leavened upwards, covered with delicious icing. It’s prepared with white flour, brewer's yeast, eggs, butter, and sugar. Inside there are walnuts and raisins, but there are also variations that use hazelnuts, jam and almonds, as well as cream and liqueur. With the addition in some cases of chocolate too. Once baked in the oven, the l’Anello di Monaco is covered with icing.
From Grigioni to Mincio
What do Germany and Switzerland have to do with it? Well, simple. At the end of the 18th century, dozens of Swiss candymaker and coffee maker families arrived in Mantua, especially from Graubünden. Their success was such that they set a real dynasty in motion, such as the Schumacher, the Putscher, the Senoner, the Gilli and the Padret. In the nineteenth century in Mantua, there were no less than 54 people with Swiss surnames: candymakers, but also bakers, coffee shop owners, owners of hotels and billiard rooms.
Close relative of kugelhupf
It was one of them, Adolf Putscher, who invented the Anello di Monaco in 1798, in his pastry shop in what is now Piazza Marconi. In all probability the confectioner had come into contact with the Austro-German bundt cake known as kugelhupf (or gugelhupf), evidently too difficult to translate for any good Mantovano. The kugelhupf, however, has no dried fruit or any enhancement to the filling, but instead of icing there is a sprinkling of powdered icing sugar. Does it remind you of anything? Of course, the pandoro Veronese. It seems that in creating it, Domenico Melegatti was in fact inspired by the Austrian pastry as well as the Scaliger Nadalin, which is the true ancestor of the most famous Christmas desserts, along with the panettone.
Ties with Milan and Verona?
Mantua seems to join the mysterious thread that links these two stellar Christmas desserts of our tradition. Similarities can also be found between the Ring from Munich and the nusskranz, another German cake in the shape of a donut. But advances in the German recipe, particularly with raisins and dried fruit, our Putscher is indebted to Italian gastronomy of that time, which had already elaborated desserts such as the Milanese panettone, the nadalin-pandoro veronese, the Valtellina bisciola and the Genoese pandolce. It may be for this reason that in Mantua, the Anello "di Monaco" is sometimes also called Anello "del monaco” (meaning of the monk): a legend of dubious reliability would have it be in fact born from the inspiration of a monk at the Abbey of San Benedetto in Polirone, who would have invented a richer version of the classic "ciambellona casareccia".
The other jewel
Samson Putscher, another member of the Swiss-Mantuan dynasty to whom we owe a cake invention to is cake Elvezia. A Christmas cake composed of part cookie, prepared with almond, egg whites, and butter, technically called "Japanese meringue"; and then a creamy part. The filling has evolved over time, with different shapes and recipes, but the traditional one is based on gianduia, zabaglione, Marsala and orange rosolio.