Genoa cake (or simply genoa) is a fruit cake consisting of sultanas (golden-colored raisins), currants or raisins,

glacé cherries Candied fruit, also known as glacé fruit, is whole fruit, smaller pieces of fruit, or pieces of peel, placed in heated sugar syrup, which absorbs the moisture from within the fruit and eventually preserves it. Depending on the size and type o ...

, almonds, and candied orange peel or essence, cooked in a batter of flour, eggs, butter and sugar.Ingredients and nutritional analysis of commercially made Genoa Cake
at

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

supermarket

Origins

Although the name ''Genoa cake'' is mainly used in the UK, where recipes for it have been around since the 19th century, it is a variant of the pandolce (; lij, pandoçe ; ) cake which originated in 16th-century

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

as a

Christmas cake Christmas cake is a type of cake, often fruitcake, served at Christmas time in many countries. British variations Christmas cake is an English tradition that began as plum porridge. A traditional English Christmas cake is made with moist Zant ...

. Unlike Genoa cake, traditional pandolce includes

pine nut Pine nuts, also called piñón (), pinoli (), pignoli or chilgoza (), are the edible seeds of pines (family Pinaceae, genus ''Pinus''). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, only 29 species provide edible nuts, while 20 are trad ...

s as a major ingredient and uses

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constit ...

as its

raising agent In cooking, a leavening agent () or raising agent, also called a leaven () or leavener, is any one of a number of substances used in doughs and batters that cause a foaming action (gas bubbles) that lightens and softens the mixture. An alterna ...

, which requires several hours to rise, like bread. This original form is now known as ('deep pandolce'), whilst a simpler variant which uses baking powder is known as ('flat pandolce') and is essentially the same as the Genoa cake sold in the UK, with a moist but crumbly texture. The term ''Genoa cake'' is also sometimes used to refer to two other Genoa-related cakes, neither of which are fruit cakes:

génoise cake A génoise (, , ; usually spelled genoise in English), also known as Genoese cake or Genovese cake, is an Italian sponge cake named after the city of Genoa and associated with Italian cuisine, Italian and French cuisine, French cuisine. Instead ...

, a light sponge cake, and

pain de Gênes ''Pain de Gênes'' () is a cake made largely from almond paste, eggs and melted butter, but only a minimal amount of flour. Another unusual aspect is that no raising agent is used, instead the rise is achieved by whisking the butter and eggs. It ...

('Genoa bread'), a dense almond cake.Cook's Info: Genoa Cake
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References

{{Cakes Italian cakes Cuisine of Liguria Christmas cakes

Origins

See also

References