For shortcrust pastry:

200 gr of flour
120 gr of butter
70 gr of sugar
1 egg yolk
A pinch of salt
Lemon peel

For stuffing:

500 gr of ricotta cheese
150 gr of sugar
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
Lemon peel
6 sheets of gelatin

Ricotta cheese Tortino

Pastry preparation:

Sift the flour and form a fountain in the middle. Pour the egg yolk, sugar, salt and lemon peel then put the cold butter in flakes. Starting from the center quickly knead until you obtain a smooth paste and let it rest in refrigerator for two hours.

Turn on the oven. On floured pastry board, roll out the dough into two disks of 26 cm in diameter.

Cook in oven on buttered plate (or use the greaseproof paper) at 190 ° for 10-12 minutes.

Divide one of the disks still hot into 12 equal parts and let it cool.

Ricotta custer preparation:

Mix the ricotta cheese with caster sugar, vanilla sugar, juice and lemon peel.

Heat the white wine and dissolve the gelatine sheets previously soaked in cold water.

Whip the cream and add gelatine and cream into the mixture of ricotta cheese.

Put the whole disk of dough into a mold, by covering the board with greaseproof paper, and pour the ricotta cream.

300 gr of wheat flour
150 gr of butter
100 gr of sugar
1 small glass of grappa
1 pinch of bicarbonate of soda
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of honey
70 gr of shelled almonds
A pinch of salt

Fregoloti cake

Preparation:

Whip the butter with sugar and add the egg yolk, honey, salt and grappa, always stirring.

Then add the flour previously sifted, bicarbonate and the ground almonds.

Place the dough at flakes in a buttered cake pan and bake in preheated oven at 150 degrees for about 45-50 minutes.

To prevent this sweet crumbles, it is recommended to cut while it’s still lukewarm.

500 gr of minced yellow carrots
200 gr of flour
300 gr of sugar
100 gr of butter
150 gr of ground almonds
3 yolk
3 egg whites
1 small glass of grappa
Grated lemon peel
1 packet of yeast
Salt

Carrot cake

Preparation:

Whip sugar with the yolks of eggs, then gradually add all other ingredients and finally the egg whites beaten stiff.

Baste with butter and flour the cake tin and bake for 45 minutes.

Eat cold, dusted with icing sugar.

50 ml of Water (to obtain a dense mixture)
400 gr. of Flour
6-8 gr. of Salt
4 Eggs

Directions:

Pour in a bowl the flour and then put in its centre the eggs, the salt and the water.

Making the Spätzli

Amalgamate everything together until you obtain a smooth and homogeneous mixture whose thickness should allow you to make it fall down in big drops from the wooden spoon. For this reason be careful in adding the water: maybe it will be necessary to use more then just 50 ml of this liquid.

Amalgamating all the ingredients

When the mixture is ready, take a potato masher and place it on a pot full of boiling water. Now put some of the mixture in the potato masher and push in order to make the little dumplings fall in the water.

Pushing the mixture in the potato masher

When they resurface on the water they will be cooked and ready to be drained.

Draining the Spätzli

Another way of forming the spätzli is to put some of the mixture on a humid wooden tablet using a wet cake slice to scrape some pieces of this mixture making then fall into the boiling water.

The other way of making the Spätzli

All the pieces should be more or less similar in order to require the same cooking time.  Also in this case you can drain the spätzli when they resurface on the boiling water.

The spätzli are very tasty if dressed with fresh cream or melted butter and covered with chives and grated Parmesan.

The Spätzli

For the sheet of pastry:

½ Glass of Lukewarm Water
250 gr. of Flour
2 Spoons of Olive Oil
A small quantity of Salt
1 Egg

For the Filling

100 gr. of Butter (to toast the breadcrumbs)
100 gr. of Melted Butter (to grease the baking pan)
2 Teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder
The Minced Peel of 1 Lemon
1 kg of  Golden Apples
150 gr. of Breadcrumbs
50 gr. of Pine Nuts
100 gr. of Sultana
120 gr.  of Sugar

For the covering

Some Icing sugar

Directions:

Pour the flour on the table adding in its centre the egg, the salt and the oil. Start mixing everything together adding very slowly the water you need  to make your dough solid, smooth and elastic. When you finish to do that, you should form a ball greasing it with olive oil and letting it stand for 30 minutes in a cool place.

The ball shaped dough

In the meanwhile pre-soak the sultana in the lukewarm water, toast the breadcrumbs in the butter and then peel the apples eliminating their core and cutting them into very thin slices. Turn on the oven at 200°.

Take the dough and roll it out on a duster covered with flour forming a rectangle. You have to do this until the sheet of pastry becomes as thin as a sheet of paper.

The rolled dough

After that, you should grease the sheet of pastry using the half part of the melted butter ( leaving a border of 2-3 cm) and put on it the half part of the toasted breadcrumbs. Now add the apples slices, the squeezed sultana, the pine nuts, some cinnamon powder, the sugar and the minced lemon peel. Finally cover everything using the remaining  breadcrumbs.

Filling the sheet of pastry

Roll up the strudel starting from the longer side avoiding to damage the dough: it would be easier to use the duster placed under it.

Rolling up the Strudel

Once having formed the roll seal it very carefully in order to prevent the filling to leak in the oven.

The sealed Strudel

Then put the strudel on a buttered baking pan (or on a sheet of greaseproof paper) then brush the dough surface with the remaining melted butter.

Brushing the Strudel surface

At this point you can put the strudel into the oven at 200° for 40 minutes.

Putting the Strudel into the oven

Once cooked, cover the strudel with some icing sugar and serve it lukewarm and cut into slices.

The Apple Strudel

1 kg of Minced Pork Meat
500 g of Minced Beef Meat
200 g of Lard
5 g of Minced Black Pepper
A mall quantity of Cinnamon Powder
1 Garlic Clove

Directions:

In order to obtain the Pastin you should mill all the ingredients together, mixing them and forming some balls that should be immediately eaten. You can spread them directly on a slice of bread  without cooking them or you can also grill them adding some polenta (the Italian cornmeal porridge).

Grilled Pastin

250 gr of stale bread (white bread with the rind, cut into small cubes of about 1/2 cm.
150 gr of Alto Adige Speck with its fat, cut into cubes of 2-3 mm
2 eggs
1/4 of milk
1 tablespoon of onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of butter
2 tablespoons of minced parsley
1 tablespoon of chopped chives
Flour no more than 30 grams
Salt
Pepper

Knödel with Speck

Preparation

Brown the onion in the butter and add the speck. Mix speck and onion in a bowl with the bread. Beat eggs, add milk, parsley and chives. Pepper and salt in moderation given the presence of Speck. Carefully mix the dough and let rest for 15 minutes or so.

Add a little of flour, the amount should vary depending on the consistency of wet bread and can be evaluated in the right measure only with the experience; usually one or two tablespoons of flour should be sufficient. The flour can be further reduced and even eliminated, especially if you use hot milk.

Form with your hands Knödel in the form of balls with a diameter of about 5-6 cm. It is always important that bread is worked gently so to preserve its porous structure. Knödel should be neither dry nor soft. If it is too soft, use not flour but breadcrumbs. The Knödel (including that to serve then in soup) should be put in boiling salted water and then cooked for 15 minutes.