Sighs or sweets of the bride, a traditional Apulian dessert

Let’s find out how to make Apulian sighs at home so you can savor their goodness at any latitude you are.

The sweet sighs are a typical dessert of Bisceglie but also widespread in the neighboring areas. It is a single-portion dessert consisting of a sponge cake base filled with custard and covered with a pure white icing. The goodness of the Apulian sighs recipe is such that it has earned it the recognition of Traditional Agri-food Product (PAT) while since 2004 I have been a Slow Food presidium.

As for the origin of the name of this Apulian dessert, there are different currents of thought. According to some, it was prepared for the first time by the Clarisse nuns to celebrate the marriage between Lucrezia Borgia and the count of Conversano . Since the bride never reached her destination, the sweets were eaten, amid sighs, by the waiting guests. According to another legend, however, they were made by a young lover who, by choosing this particular shape, wanted to reproduce that of the beloved’s breast. Whatever the origin of this quick and easy dessert, we can say that it is truly delicious and deserves to be tried.

How to prepare the recipe for sweet sighs

1. Start by preparing the sponge cake . Break the eggs into a bowl, add 30 g of sugar and flour and work with an electric whisk until the mixture has tripled in volume.
2. Transfer it to a pastry bag and form 8 tufts of 6 cm of base. If you want, you can also bake the sponge cake inside the hemisphere molds . In all cases it will take 30 minutes at 160 ° C.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the custard . Work the egg yolks with the remaining sugar and corn starch then pour in the milk, stirring with a whisk.
4. Peel the lemon and put the peel in the milk then bring to the stove and cook for about ten minutes, until it has thickened.
5. Once ready, transfer it to a pastry bag and let it cool completely.
6. When the sponge cake bases are cold too, cut them in half into sandwiches, without going all the way, and fill them with the custard.
7. Prepare the icing by whipping the icing sugar, the drops of lemon juice and the egg whites with an electric mixer.
8. Transfer the sighs to a wire rack and, with the help of a spoon, glaze the surface as evenly as possible.
9. Let them dry for 4 hours before serving.

This typical Apulian product resembles the boobs of the typical Altamura nuns but the two preparations are different.

storage

You can keep sweet sighs in the refrigerator, well covered with a cake bell, for 2-3 days .