Professor Butter Beard’s “Entrance To the Grand Canal”
“I loved her from my boyhood – she to me was a fairy city of the heart.
Rising like water-columns from the sea,
Of joy the sojourn and of wealth the mart;
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare’s art,
Had stamped her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part,
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe
Than when she was a boost, a marvel and a show.”
- Lord Byron, “Venice”
A fairy city of the heart. What a delicious phrasing by Lord Byron. It is perfect timing, as my eternally buzzing travel bug is teasing me with visions of sights yet unseen. Of course, the Scottish cousin of said bug is constantly whispering “come home now,” but the king bug is tempting me with fantasies of Istanbul and Sukhothai and Crete. And when he truly wants to exaggerate the itch, he zooms in on the lapping waves singing and dancing on the canals of Venice.
To date, almost all my Venetian dreams are visitations within the paintings of Canaletto. Only limited biographical details exist about Giovanni Antonio Canal, the artist better known as Canaletto (“Little Canal”). His parents, mother Artemisia Barbieri, and painter father Bernardo Canal, were members of the eighteenth-century upper-class Venetian society. His first biographer, the Veronese painter Pietro Guarienti, published this introduction in 1753: “Antonio Canal, Venetian, renowned painter of city views. After studying for some time under his painter father, he moved to Rome as a youth and, learning through untiring study to draw with precision, and painting the lovely old edifices with marvelous taste, before not many years had passed he began portraying them on canvas with such craftsmanship and skill that few amongst the ancient artists, and none amongst the modern have ever been able to rival him in the art of copying and recreating nature and reality so perfectly.”
Long before souvenir postcards or photographs existed, Canaletto's skill at capturing the feel and image of Venice brought him popularity among the young aristocrats on their educational journey, or “Grand Tour,” through Europe. Canaletto had by now all but perfected his painting skills by using a camera obscura to prepare his paintings and etchings. The camera obscura, in which a closed box allowed light to be admitted through a tiny pinhole onto an angled mirror, created an exact reflected image onto a surface from which one could trace and then transfer to a canvas to paint. According to historian Roberto Longhi his use of this device meant that almost "miraculously, his art became poetry."
“The Entrance to the Grand Canal” depicts a perfectly sunny day in Venice looking inward from the Adriatic Sea with gondoliers poling down the busy waterway, depositing visitors to walk up the impressive landing stairs that lead to the entrance of Santa Maria della Salute (St Mary of Health or Deliverance). The church was constructed as a thanksgiving offering to Mary from the citizens of Venice for delivering them from the devastating plague of 1630-38. The Venetian Republic vowed to build her a church and the competition was won by Baldassare Longhena, a Baroque period architect, adding yet another style to the already multi-layered landscape. Longhena wrote: “I have created a church in the form of a rotunda, a work of new invention, not built in Venice, a work very worthy and desired by many. This church, having the mystery of its dedication, being dedicated to the Blessed Virgin made me think, with what little talent God has bestowed upon me of building the church in the…shape of a crown.”
In 1725, Alessandro Marchesini, a Venetian painter and picture dealer, advised a client looking for “veduta” (topographical views/city scenes) to look at the work of a new young painter. Of Canaletto’s painting he said, “you can see the sun shining in it.” I was inspired to also attempt to capture these timeless rays of sunshine in my “Focaccia Veneziana” – an extravagant dome of sweet bread laced with orange zest, aromatic honey and rum-soaked golden raisins. To gild the lily, I serve mine with slices of juicy white peaches from the local farmer’s market. The cakes require a bit of time and patience, but plan to take on the challenge during one of those upcoming rainy autumn days when your travel bug is inviting you to a masquerade ball on a Venetian canal.
Focaccia Veneziana
Two 10-cup Bundt Cakes (go ahead, if you are spending the time, make a 2nd for a friend!)
Step One – The Sponge:
½ cup warm water
2 ½ tsp active dry yeast
2 tsp honey
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 rounded cups of all-purpose flour
Step Two – The First Dough
2 Tbsp warm water
½ tsp active dry yeast
4 Tbsp dry milk (I always keep a container on hand)
½ cup granulated sugar
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
6 large egg yolks (keep the whites for a delicious angel food cake)
2 tsp kosher salt
2 rounded cups of all-purpose flour
Step Three – The Second Dough
4 Tbsp honey
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla paste
Zest of two oranges
8 large egg yolks (you almost have an angel food cake!)
4 ½ - 5 cups all-purpose flour
10 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup golden raisins, soaked overnight in your favorite rum
1) The night before, soak the golden raisins in your favorite rum (enough to fully cover the raisins).
2) Prepare the sponge: In the bowl of a standing mixer, whisk together the warm water, dry yeast and honey. Let stand for 10 minutes until foamy. With the paddle, stir in the eggs and then the flour to make a soft dough. Remove the paddle, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let double in size – about 45 minutes.
3) Prepare the first dough: In a medium bowl, whisk together the water and yeast and let stand for 10 minutes until foamy. Whisk in the dry milk, the sugar, the butter and then the eggs. With the paddle going on your standing mixer, stir this new mixture into your sponge. In another small bowl, whisk together the salt and flour. Add this to the mixture until the dough just comes together. Again, remove the paddle, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let double in size – about 45 minutes.
4) Prepare the bundt pans by lightly brushing them with melted butter and lightly dust with all-purpose flour. Pour your raisins into a strainer and save the draining liquor.
5) Add the remaining honey, granulated sugar, vanilla and orange zest to the dough and mix together with the paddle. Add the egg yolks. Switch to the dough hook and mix in the flour, one cup at a time, then mix in the butter, one Tbsp at a time. Mix until the dough comes together, but it will never fully pull away from the bottom of the bowl. Finally, lightly mix in the raisins.
6) Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into two equal portions. Dust again with flour and shape each portion into a thick log about one foot long. Place the dough into the bundt pans bringing the edges together. They will join as the dough completes its final rise. Cover the pans with a clean kitchen towel and let rise until doubled. This could take two hours.
7) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly slash the top of the cakes with a razor blade and then bake the cakes for 35-40 minutes until solid and golden. The cakes will rise dramatically in the oven! Let the cakes cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then turn out of the pans. Brush the cakes with the reserved soaking rum liquor. Cool complete and then dust with confectioner’s sugar.
