Vignola: The Search for a Torta Barozzi

The last time we went to Vignola, our main goal was to eat a Torta Barozzi from this Pasticceria Gollini. And it was closed.

So we set off again in the hopes that it would be open. It helped that there was a cherry festival going on at the same time so we would have something to distract our (mostly my) disappointment.

This time we took the easy route; we skipped out on the nature trail for the sake of our bikes (and maybe our own sanity).

We headed straight for our target pasticceria.

As you can tell from my double thumbs up, it was open! Yay!

I went in and immediately asked for a piece of Torta Barozzi. And some coffee. I had to get up at 9:30 (in the morning!) for this trip. A whole hour and a half before my new wake-up time.

There was a little pamphlet on the table, giving the history of the Torta Barozzi in four different languages.

It was a tiny piece, but satisfying because this cake is so incredibly dense. And so incredibly delicious.

Next, our tummies told us that eating only chocolate cake and coffee after riding our bikes for an two and a half hours was not a good plan.

So I got some tigelle--one with prosciutto crudo and the other with salami and cheese.

For the rest of our time we walked around the cherry festival (and we downed one kilo of duroni in about 20 minutes).

And then we found this window display.

"Frightening" is the only word that comes to mind.

Vignola is a very cute little town. And it has castles, of course.

As you can see, the sky was foreboding on the way back, but we forged ahead.

And saw some cows.

And tried to get this cat to come play with me.

And became confused by this sign.

And this one. They seem to have named this street after Jack Kerouac for no apparent reason...

Then it started raining. And it didn't stop. We rode in the rain for about 45 minutes to an hour. Unfortunately, this was the first time I chose to wear shorts and a tank top in Italy because I expected it to be un-Godly hot. Instead, it was cold and rainy. We got many strange looks from the heavily covered and umbrella-ed Italians that hate to be touched by a drop of rain. First we rode our bikes 50 kilometers to eat a cake. Then we rode our bikes IN THE RAIN! Blasphemy.

Anyways, mission accomplished! Well, almost. You see, I bought a mini, packaged Torta Barozzi and the ingredients are listed on the back. Well, those ingredients do not match up with the recipes I've found online. At all.

New mission: figure out how to make the famous Torta Barozzi from Pasticceria Gollini.

-Meri