CURIOSITIES
22/06/2007
PANDORO AND ITS ORIGINS

With its soft and gentle taste, Pandoro ha become a symbol of the traditional Christmas lunch.
After all the celebrations, there must be on the table this intense yellow cake, enriched with icing sugar and sometimes embellished with abundant cream filling….

Origins of Pandoro ....
The name Pandoro comes from the intense gold yellow color of this cake. Its origins, however, are uncertain. Historians have tried for a long time to understand where this beloved cake came from and the theories are still conflicting. Some experts think that Pandoro was born in the Venetian Republic during the XVI century, when cone-shaped cakes, covered with golden leaves and called “Pan de Oro” were served on the rich tables of noble people.
According to others, instead, its origin comes from an old star-shaped cake that the inhabitants of Verona ate at Christmas: the “nadalin”.
However, the most reliable theory links the birth of Pandoro to the Royal House of the Asburgo family.
In the XVIII-XIX century the preparation techniques of the “Pane di Vienna” were already known, and they stayed at the basis of the Pandoro preparation.
The preparation of the "Pane di Vienna" provided that a higher dose of butter was added to the dough with the puff pastry structure, where layers of puff pastry and layers of butter alternate. In this way, the cake rises while cooking.
The production of Pandoro in Verona improves throughout the XIX century until the end of it. This cake has been the most typical expression of the confectionery production of Verona and nowadays it is famous all over Italy as one of the traditional Christmas cakes.
Pandoro still keeps the star shape of the old “nadalin” and its truncated-cone structure with large edges forming the typical eight-pointed-star shape.