# Panforte di Siena Siena's spiced cake of candied fruit and almonds. Siena, Toscana. Desserts (Dolci). > Siena's spiced Christmas cake, a PGI since 2013: candied citron and orange, whole unpeeled almonds and a little flour, bound with cooked sugar and honey, baked on a starch wafer inside a paper band and dusted with icing sugar. - Level of proof: EU-codified (Disciplinare europeo). The dish itself is protected by an EU specification (TSG, PDO or PGI) that fixes how it is made. - Sources checked: 2026-10-28 - Published: 2026-10-28 - Page: https://nonnario.com/recipes/panforte-di-siena/ ## In short - Whole unpeeled almonds, candied citron and orange peel, type 0 flour, sugar, a little wildflower honey, cinnamon and nutmeg, on a starch wafer. - Candied fruit is the biggest share, 35–45% of the mixture; almonds at least 18%, flour 14–18%, sugars 18–23% and honey only 2–5%. - The sugar is dissolved in water and cooked, the fruit mixed in, then the almonds, flour and spices; pressed flat inside a paper band. - Dusted with flour, baked at 200 °C–230 °C for 13–45 minutes by size, cooled, brushed clean and covered with icing sugar. - The black version swaps the citron for candied melon, adds pepe dolce to the spices and is dusted with spices instead of sugar. Also called: Panforte Margherita, panforte bianco, panforte nero, Panforte di Siena IGP, Sienese panforte, panforte. Suitable for: vegetarian, as written. No meat, fish, lard or meat broth, as written. Some traditional cheeses are made with animal rennet. ## Where it comes from Panforte is the sweet of Siena. As its specification tells it, it took shape from the twelfth century in the town's convents and in the shops of the speziali, the apothecaries, when Siena traded in spices along the Via Francigena, and historians see its first examples in the breads rich in pepper and honey that, by a chronicle of 1205, servants and tenants had to bring to the nuns of the abbey of Montecelso, near Siena. The name panforte appears in the early 1800s, when the first panforte factory opened, in 1810; Pellegrino Artusi counted it among the special sweets of Siena and put it on his menu for Christmas Day. The white panforte dates from 1879: for Queen Margherita's visit to the August Palio it was made with fewer spices and covered in icing sugar, and named panforte Margherita. The darker, spicier panforte nero, also called panpepato in Siena, is made with candied melon, long grown in the Sienese countryside for the purpose. An old local legend, told by Giovanni Righi Parenti, ties it to Christmas: a crust of bread turned into panforte on the night Jesus was born. ‘Panforte di Siena’ has been a PGI since 2013, by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 466/2013: only panforte made and packed in the province of Siena under the specification may carry the name. The specification recognises a white version (‘bianco’ or ‘Margherita’) and a black one (‘nero’); for each it fixes the share of each compulsory ingredient in the mixture, limits some of the optional ones, allows nothing else, and sets the method this page follows, with the baking at 200–230 °C for 13 to 45 minutes by size. A panforte is 14–45 mm high, with at most 15% moisture. The specification sets shares for producers, not a household recipe, and the home recipes we compared all fall outside them, most with far more honey and less candied fruit. This page makes the white panforte, whose candied citron and orange are easy to buy, as one round cake of about 1 kg, 20 cm across. The batch is our own composition within every share of the specification, and it has not yet been tested in a home kitchen: the amounts, the water and the stage of the syrup (about 115 °C), the tin and the oven (210 °C, until the centre reaches about 78 °C) are our guide, and every step has a check to judge it by. The black version is among the variants. Made outside the province of Siena, it is panforte in the Sienese manner, not Panforte di Siena. - Defined by: European Union - Reference: PGI ‘Panforte di Siena’, Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 466/2013; production specification as published by the Ministry of Agriculture ## Sources - [Ministry of Agriculture (MASAF): the production specification of the PGI (Italian)](https://www.masaf.gov.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeAttachment.php/L/IT/D/d%252Fb%252F2%252FD.8bd4938085795075f8a4/P/BLOB%3AID%3D3347/E/pdf?mode=download) - [EU Official Journal C 231 of 2 August 2012: the application to register the PGI, with its single document (EUR-Lex, Italian)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52012XC0802(01)) - [Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 466/2013, registering the PGI (EUR-Lex, Italian)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32013R0466) - [GialloZafferano: panforte (Italian)](https://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Panforte.html) - [Visit Tuscany: the panforte recipe of Juls' Kitchen (Italian)](https://www.visittuscany.com/it/ricette/la-ricetta-del-panforte-di-siena/) - [Accademia Italiana della Cucina: panforte di Siena o panpepato, from its recipe collection (Italian)](https://www.accademiaitalianadellacucina.it/it/ricette/ricetta/panforte-di-siena-o-panpepato) - [La Cucina Italiana: Iginio Massari's panforte di Siena, Bake Off Italia 2026 (Italian)](https://www.lacucinaitaliana.it/article/bake-off-italia-2026-prova-tecnica-1-panforte-di-siena-ricetta-iginio-massari/) - [Dissapore: panforte, the perfect recipe, 2016 (Italian)](https://www.dissapore.com/ricette/panforte-la-ricetta-perfetta/) - [olive magazine: panforte](https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/baking-and-desserts/panforte/) - [Sale&Pepe: Sienese panforte, a Christmas sweet with spices, 2025 (Italian)](https://www.salepepe.it/news/cultura-del-cibo/panforte-senese-un-dolce-natale-con-le-spezie/) - [Pellegrino Artusi: La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene, recipe 619 and the menu for Christmas Day (Project Gutenberg, Italian)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59047) ## Ingredients For 16 servings, in metric units. ### The mixture: our amounts, within the specification's shares (for each panforte, not scaled with servings) - 200 g candied citron (cedro, bought in pieces if you can and diced at home) - 200 g candied orange peel (in pieces if you can, diced at home) - 200 g whole almonds, unpeeled (sweet almonds with their brown skins, never blanched, sliced or chopped) - 160 g type 0 flour (soft wheat flour, the specification's type) - 4 g ground cinnamon (about one and a half teaspoons) - 1 g ground nutmeg (about half a teaspoon) - 220 g granulated sugar (the specification also allows glucose syrup or invert sugar) - 45 g wildflower honey (millefiori, the specification's honey) - 60 ml water (our guide: the specification gives no amount) ### For the tin and the finish (for each panforte, not scaled with servings) - 1 sheet of edible wafer paper (ostia: a disc at least 20 cm across, or a sheet to cut one from) - type 0 flour, for dusting (about a teaspoon) - icing sugar (for dusting) ## Equipment - Kitchen scale - A 20 cm springform tin, baking paper and scissors - Small heavy saucepan and a dry wooden spoon - Sugar thermometer, or a glass of cold water for the soft-ball test - Large heatproof bowl and a sturdy wooden spoon - Small sieve, for the flour and the icing sugar - Dry pastry brush - Oven thermometer - Probe thermometer, for the centre of the panforte - A thin knife, and a large sharp one for cutting ## Method Hands-on 42 min, cooking 28 min, resting at least 2 h 10 min. About 3 hours, most of it cooling: 15 minutes for the oven to heat while you line the tin, dice the fruit and weigh everything, 10 minutes for the syrup, 10 to mix and press it out, 13–16 in the oven, 10 in the tin and about 2 hours to cool before it is cleaned and dusted. Work without pausing from the syrup to the oven: the mixture stiffens as it cools. By our estimate the batch makes one panforte of about 1 kg, 20 cm across and about 2.5 cm high, enough for 16 thin wedges. ### Before you start 1. **Heat the oven** (Cooking 15 min; 210 °C). Heat the oven to 210 °C, static (top and bottom heat), with a shelf in the middle. Meanwhile line the tin, dice the fruit and weigh everything. Check: An oven thermometer on the shelf reads 210 °C. Tip: Our guide: the specification bakes at 200 °C–230 °C; 210 °C leaves a margin either side, since many home ovens run hotter or cooler than their dial. 2. **Line the tin, with the wafer and a paper band** (Hands-on 5 min). Line the base of the 20 cm springform tin with baking paper and lay the wafer on it. Cut a strip of baking paper as tall as the tin and as long as its circumference, and stand it round the inside of the ring. Check: The wafer covers the whole base, and the paper band goes all the way round with no gap. Tip: If your wafer is a rectangular sheet, cut a 20 cm disc from it, using the tin's base as a guide. Tip: Our guide: the strip stands in for the specification's band of paper round each panforte. It can stay on: on panforte sold by the slice, every wedge keeps a piece of it. 3. **Dice the candied fruit** (Hands-on 10 min; follows the official text). Cut the candied citron and the candied orange peel into small cubes. Check: Even cubes of about 0.5 cm, with no long strips and no pieces stuck together. Tip: Our guide: small, regular cubes of about 0.5 cm. If you can, buy the peel in large pieces and dice it yourself. Tip: If the knife sticks, dip it in hot water and dry it. 4. **Mix the almonds, flour and spices** (Hands-on 3 min). In the large heatproof bowl, mix the flour, the cinnamon and the nutmeg, then add the whole almonds. Check: The spices are evenly mixed into the flour, with no streaks. ### The mixture From here to the oven, work without stopping: the syrup sets as it cools. 5. **Cook the syrup** (Hands-on 6–10 min; 115 °C; heat: medium; follows the official text). Dissolve the sugars in water and cook them. Check: The sugar has fully dissolved, big slow bubbles cover the surface, and a sugar thermometer reads 115 °C. Without a thermometer: half a teaspoon dropped into cold water and squeezed after 30 seconds forms a soft ball. Tip: Our guide: put the sugar, the water and the honey in the small heavy pan and stir over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved, then stop stirring and let it boil to about 115 °C, the soft-ball stage. The specification does not say when the honey goes in; home recipes melt it with the sugar. Tip: Our guide: this syrup is mostly sugar, with little honey, and is mixed by hand, so it stops at the soft-ball stage. One recipe, with as much honey as sugar and a stand mixer, cooks its syrup much further. Tip: If the drop dissolves in the water, boil a little longer. If it sets into a hard ball, it has gone further than this page asks: off the heat, stir in 2 tablespoons of hot water, standing back as it spits, bring it back to the boil and boil it to 115 °C again, then confirm with the soft-ball test. Tip: Boiling sugar burns badly: keep children away and use a dry wooden spoon. 6. **Stir in the candied fruit** (Hands-on 2 min; follows the official text). Mix the cooked sugars with the diced candied fruit until the mixture is even. Check: Every cube is glazed with syrup and none are stuck together. Tip: Our guide: take the pan off the heat and tip in all the fruit at once, stirring with the wooden spoon. 7. **Add the almonds, flour and spices** (Hands-on 3–5 min; follows the official text). Add the almonds, the flour and the spices, and mix until everything is completely combined. Check: No dry flour is left and the almonds are spread right through: a very stiff, sticky mass, as it should be. A little pressed in your hand holds together without crumbling. Tip: Our guide: scrape the fruit and syrup into the bowl of almonds, flour and spices and mix with the sturdy spoon; once you can bear the heat, finish with your hands, working it firmly. Tip: Do not stop halfway: as it cools it stiffens and is harder to spread. ### Shaping and baking 8. **Set it on the wafer, inside the band** (Hands-on 2 min; follows the official text). Weigh the portion, lay it on the starch wafer and surround it with a band of food-grade paper. Check: All of it is in the tin, on the wafer and inside the paper band. Tip: Our guide: at home the lined tin does this: tip the whole batch onto the wafer. Weighing matters only if you divide it into smaller panforti: the specification allows any weight from 33 g to 6 kg. 9. **Flatten it and dust it with flour** (Hands-on 3 min; follows the official text). Flatten it and, before it goes into the oven, dust it with a veil of flour. Check: An even layer about 2.5 cm thick, right out to the band, its top bumpy rather than smooth, under a thin, even veil of flour. Tip: Our guide: press it out with the back of a spoon dipped in cold water, wetting it again as you go so that it does not stick. Tip: Our guide: about a teaspoon of flour, shaken through the small sieve. The specification wants the surface uneven, so there is no need to smooth it. 10. **Bake** (Cooking 13–16 min; 210 °C; follows the official text). Bake it in an oven heated in advance to 200 °C–230 °C, for 13 to 45 minutes depending on its size. Check: At least 13 minutes have passed and a probe thermometer pushed into the centre reads about 78 °C. The top is set and dry under its flour and the edge has just begun to colour; the middle still gives a little when pressed, and firms as it cools. Tip: Our guide: 210 °C, static, on the middle shelf. By our estimate this size takes 13–16 minutes, but the batch has not yet been tested, so go by the probe, from 13 minutes, the specification's least. Tip: If the centre is still below 78 °C at 16 minutes, give it 2 minutes more and probe again; the specification allows up to 45 minutes. Tip: Our guide: do not wait for it to feel firm in the oven: by then it would set hard once cold. 11. **Open the ring while it is warm** (Rest 10 min). Leave it in the tin for about 10 minutes, then run a thin knife round between the paper band and the ring, and open the ring. Check: The ring comes away cleanly, with the band still round the panforte. Tip: Do not let it go cold in the tin: the sugar sets and glues it there. 12. **Leave it to cool** (Rest 2 h; follows the official text). Leave it to cool at room temperature. Check: Cold right through, underneath as well, and firm: the middle no longer gives when pressed. Tip: Our guide: after about 30 minutes, once it holds its shape, slide it off the tin's base onto a board and peel the baking paper away from under the wafer; then leave it until completely cold, about 2 hours in all. ### Finishing 13. **Clean it** (Hands-on 5 min; follows the official text). Remove the flour, and the offcuts of the wafer and of the paper band. Check: No loose flour on top and no wafer sticking out beyond the edge. Tip: Our guide: brush the flour off with the dry pastry brush and trim the wafer with scissors. Trim the band level with the top, or peel it off if you prefer. 14. **Dust it with icing sugar** (Hands-on 1 min; follows the official text). Dust it with a light layer of icing sugar. This may also be done just before it is eaten. Check: An even white veil, with the bumps of fruit and almonds showing through. Tip: Our guide: shake the icing sugar through the small sieve. Tip: If you are not serving it at once, wrap it closely as soon as it is cold, in baking paper and then in paper or card, and dust it just before serving, as the specification allows. 15. **Serve** (Hands-on 2 min). Cut it into thin wedges with the large knife and serve it at the end of the meal, with a glass of vin santo. Check: The knife meets a moderate resistance, and the cut face is glossy, with whole almonds well spread through the candied fruit. ## Good to know - When: Christmas: its making began in September, when nuts were easiest to come by, and went on to the end of the year, and it was eaten over the Christmas holidays. Today it is also made outside the Christmas season. ([source](https://www.masaf.gov.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeAttachment.php/L/IT/D/d%252Fb%252F2%252FD.8bd4938085795075f8a4/P/BLOB%3AID%3D3347/E/pdf?mode=download)) - Keeping: Closely wrapped in paper or card, away from damp: damp turns it translucent, soft and sticky, and a closed wrapping also keeps pantry moths away from the almonds and flour. ([source](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52012XC0802(01))) - Variant: Panforte nero: The black version, darker and much more spiced: candied melon and candied orange peel in cubes, 35–45% of the mixture as in the white, the melon at least 40% of the candied fruit (citron is allowed, up to a quarter); flour 8–18%; almonds and sugars as in the white; nutmeg, cinnamon and pepe dolce (literally ‘sweet pepper’) at 0.6–5%. Honey becomes optional, up to 5%, and walnuts (up to 5%), caramel (up to 2%), vanilla and other spices are allowed. Once cold it is dusted with the spice mix, and with cocoa if wished, instead of icing sugar. ([source](https://www.masaf.gov.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeAttachment.php/L/IT/D/d%252Fb%252F2%252FD.8bd4938085795075f8a4/P/BLOB%3AID%3D3347/E/pdf?mode=download)) - Variant: With honey and icing sugar: The way many home recipes make it: 150 g of honey and 150 g of icing sugar melted with 3 tablespoons of water into a golden syrup, for 350 g of toasted almonds, 150 g each of candied orange and citron peel, 150 g of flour and 10 g of mixed spices, pressed into an 18 cm tin, dusted with icing sugar and baked for about 25–30 minutes at 180 °C. With about 14% honey and 27% candied fruit, it is outside the specification, so it is not PGI panforte. ([source](https://www.visittuscany.com/it/ricette/la-ricetta-del-panforte-di-siena/)) ## Common mistakes - Using blanched, sliced or chopped almonds: the specification wants sweet almonds, whole and with their skins. - Binding it with plenty of honey, as many home recipes do: the white panforte allows only 2–5% honey, and candied fruit makes up 35–45% of it. - Adding walnuts, figs, cocoa or chocolate to the white panforte: beyond its list, only a little granulated hazelnut, candied melon, a few spices and vanilla are allowed. - Cooking the syrup too little, so the panforte stays soft and sticky, or well past the soft-ball stage: with this much sugar and little honey, it can set hard. - Stopping halfway through the mixing: the mixture stiffens as it cools and will not spread. - Leaving it to go cold in the tin: the sugar glues it in. - Dusting it with icing sugar before baking: the specification dusts it with flour, brushed off once it is cold, and the icing sugar goes on at the end. - Judging the bake by colour alone: the probe, about 78 °C at the centre, is surer. - Keeping it unwrapped or anywhere damp: it turns translucent, soft and sticky. ## Cooking it outside Italy - Type 0 is a soft wheat flour a little less refined than type 00: plain flour (all-purpose in the US) is the nearest equivalent. - Candied citron (cedro) is the candied peel of the citron, not of the lemon. Italian delicatessens sell it in large pieces; buy the orange peel in pieces too and dice both yourself. - Ostia is edible wafer paper, made from starch and sold for baking. Vietnamese rice paper, for spring rolls, is something else. - Millefiori is wildflower, or mixed-flower, honey. - Buy natural almonds with their brown skins (sold as raw or natural almonds), not blanched ones. - In the US, an 8-inch springform is the size to use. - Vin santo is Tuscany's sweet wine; another dessert wine will do. --- From Nonnario, the documented recipes of Italy: https://nonnario.com/recipes/panforte-di-siena/. Cite the recipe's page and the month its sources were checked; for the official text itself, cite the document listed under its sources.