Frutta martorana is Palermo's marzipan fruit: a stiff almond-and-sugar paste (pasta reale) modelled, dried and hand-painted to mimic real figs, prickly pears, cherries and chestnuts down to the bruise and the stalk. The trompe-l'oeil is the whole point, so a basket of them reads as a still life rather than a tray of sweets. Almonds and sugar are the Arab inheritance of medieval Sicily, and the confection is tied to All Souls' Day, the 2nd of November, when Palermitans set it out as a treat said to come from the dead. It is recognised as a Prodotto Agroalimentare Tradizionale of Sicily, though pastry shops now sell it all year.
The almond-and-sugar craft behind martorana fruit reaches back to Islamic Sicily, when Arab rule (9th to 11th centuries) brought sugarcane and a confectioner's taste for almond paste to the island. The sweet takes its name from the convent attached to the church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio in Palermo, founded under a charter of 1143 by George of Antioch, admiral to Roger II; a Benedictine nunnery was added on the adjoining land by the noblewoman Eloisa Martorana around 1193 to 1194, and the cloistered sisters there became renowned for the work. The story everyone tells is that the nuns, with their garden trees bare in autumn before an important visitor, modelled fruit from almond paste and hung it on the branches to impress him; that account is tradition, repeated without a documentary source, not established fact. What is documented is the long All Souls' custom and the recognition of frutta martorana, or pasta reale, as a Sicilian Prodotto Agroalimentare Tradizionale.
Cool and dense, it yields to the tooth like firm fudge, then floods the mouth with sweet almond and a whisper of bitter-almond perfume. The sugar is forward but the ground almond keeps it from cloying, leaving an oily, marzipan richness that coats the palate. The painted skin carries no flavour of its own, so the surprise is all in the gap between how real it looks and how purely of almond it tastes.
Blanched almonds are ground with sugar to a paste; a little glucose syrup or honey keeps it pliable and slows the sugar from recrystallising into grit, while the almonds' own oil lets the paste be pressed into moulds and smoothed without cracking. Worked too long it warms and weeps oil, so the paste is shaped briskly, then left to air-dry for hours until a firm skin sets that will hold paint. Colour is brushed or airbrushed on with food dye, often sealed with a thin gum-arabic glaze for sheen. The high sugar content binds water tightly, which is why the fruit keeps for weeks at room temperature without spoiling.
Variations
Beyond fruit, the same paste is modelled into vegetables, fish, ears of wheat and even chestnuts in their shells, and at Easter into lambs (agnello pasquale). Recipes split over the binder, some using only sugar syrup, others adding glucose or honey for a softer set, and a few perfumers slip in a drop of bitter-almond or orange-flower. The plain unpainted paste, sold as pasta reale, is the same mixture used to wrap a cassata.
On the Palate
Where Frutta Martorana sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 12How it's made
7 steps · 1 hour 30 min
- 115 min
Blanch the almonds in boiling water, slip off the skins, and dry them thoroughly so the paste will not turn grey.
Watch outBlanch the almonds, skin them and dry them thoroughly before grinding — any water left and the paste turns grey and weepy instead of pale and firm.
- 212 min
Grind the dried almonds with the caster sugar to a fine, even powder, working in short bursts so the mixture stays cool.
- 370 min
Warm the glucose syrup with a splash of water, pour it into the almond-sugar, and knead to a smooth, firm, non-sticky paste; rest it wrapped for an hour.
- 425 min
Press pieces of paste into fruit moulds or model them by hand into figs, cherries, prickly pears and chestnuts, then unmould.
- 5360 min
Lay the shapes on a tray and leave them to air-dry at room temperature for several hours until a firm skin forms.
Watch outAir-dry the shaped fruit for hours until a firm skin sets before painting — brush color onto a still-soft surface and it smears and won't hold; the crust is what takes the paint cleanly.
- 630 min
Brush or airbrush food colouring onto the dried fruit, blending tones for ripe blushes, stalks and bruises.
- 720 min
Glaze lightly with gum-arabic solution for sheen, let it set, then arrange the fruit in a basket.
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