Bonet: Piedmont's chocolate and amaretti pudding for cold nights
A silky baked custard with cocoa, crushed amaretti and a dark caramel coat. Make it today, turn it out tomorrow, and pour something red and sparkling.
The first cold week of November is when my oven starts earning its keep. The hens are laying less, so every egg counts, and on a Saturday I want a dessert that sits quietly in the cellar overnight and asks nothing of me on Sunday. In Piedmont that dessert is bonet.
Bonet is a baked custard of milk, eggs, sugar, cocoa and crushed amaretti, cooked in a mould lined with caramel and turned out cold. The name is Piedmontese dialect for a cap or hat. Some say it comes from the copper mould it was baked in, others that it was the cap on the end of a long Langhe Sunday lunch. Both stories are told with equal confidence round here.
It sits somewhere between crème caramel and a chocolate pudding, denser and darker than both, with the bitter-almond chew of amaretti running through it. Older versions leave out the cocoa. The Langhe version, the one I make, keeps it in.
What you need
- Milk: 500 ml whole milk. Skip the skimmed; the custard needs the fat to set silky.
- Eggs: 4 large, at room temperature.
- Sugar: 100 g for the custard, plus 100 g and 2 tbsp water for the caramel.
- Amaretti: 100 g of the crisp kind (amaretti secchi), crushed to fine crumbs with a few small pieces left in.
- Cocoa: 30 g unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted.
- Rum: 2 tbsp dark rum, or a splash of strong coffee if children are eating.
- Mould: a 1 litre loaf tin or pudding mould, plus a roasting tin for the water bath.
How to make it
Heat the oven to 160 °C and put the kettle on. Melt 100 g sugar with the water in a small pan without stirring, swirling gently, until it turns the colour of a dark chestnut. Pour it straight into the mould and tilt to coat the base and a little way up the sides. It sets within seconds and it is extremely hot, so keep your fingers well away.
Warm the milk until it steams, then take it off the heat. Whisk the eggs and sugar together until just combined, without beating in air. Whisk in the cocoa, then the warm milk in a slow stream, then the amaretti crumbs and the rum. Leave it for five minutes so the amaretti soften, stir once more and pour it into the mould over the set caramel.
Set the mould in the roasting tin and pour in hot water to come halfway up its sides. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until the edges are firm and the centre still trembles slightly when you nudge the tin. A thin knife pushed into the middle should come out with no liquid custard on it. Lift it out of the water, let it cool, then chill it overnight. Do not skip this: the caramel needs those hours to melt back into a sauce.
Bella's tip: Keep the water bath below a boil. If it bubbles, the custard puffs up and sets full of little holes. A folded tea towel in the bottom of the roasting tin, under the mould, keeps the base gentle and silky.
Turning it out
Run a thin knife round the edge, put a plate with a rim over the mould and turn the whole thing over in one confident move. Lift the mould slowly. The caramel will run down the sides and pool on the plate, which is the whole point, so use a plate with a lip. If some caramel stays stuck in the mould, add a spoonful of hot water, swirl and spoon it over.
Bonet keeps for three days in the fridge, covered. Slice it thick with a knife dipped in hot water. It needs nothing beside it, though a spoonful of lightly whipped cream does no harm. If you want a lighter set dessert this weekend, my apple panna cotta uses the last of the orchard.
Recipe: apple panna cotta with toasted oat crumble
What to pour
- Brachetto d'Acqui: Piedmont's sweet, lightly sparkling red. It smells of roses and strawberries and is one of the few wines happy next to chocolate. Serve it well chilled.
- Barolo Chinato: Barolo aromatised with cinchona bark and spices. Bittersweet and warming, lovely with the amaretti. A small glass is plenty.
- Espresso: Short, no sugar. My nonna's choice in Milan, and still a good one.
Guide: piedmont wines
I make mine on Saturday afternoon while the light goes, and it waits on the cold shelf of the cellar next to the quince jelly. By Sunday lunch it is ready, which leaves my hands free for whatever Artusi has in store.
