Together with chocolate eggs, your Easter dinner table simply has to have a soft colomba cake, a typical northern Italian dessert, but found all around the country in many different versions.

Some people prefer it with candied fruit, some with raisins and some, like us, with chocolate chips. A little trick to make your colomba cake even softer is to add a potato to the dough.

Ingredients for an 800 g colomba cake
Eggs, 3
Milk, 180 ml
White potatoes, 80 g
Ultra-fine flour (“00” type), 350 g
Sunflower oil, 100 ml
Sugar, 150 g
Grated peel, 1 orange
Grated peel, 1 lemon
Almond flavouring, 2 ml
Baking powder for savoury cakes, 7 g
Chocolate chips, 100 g
Almonds, 100 g

Preparation
Boil the potatoes and mash them carefully to get rid of any harder parts.
Use an electric mixer to whip the egg whites and put them to one side. Work the yolks together with the sugar, then add the almond flavouring and the orange and lemon peel. Pour in the sunflower oil, the warm milk, the mashed potatoes and mix thoroughly. You will now have a creamy, smooth mixture.
Add the flour and the baking powder a little at a time while you keep working it with the electric mixer. Add the whipped egg whites while gently stirring with a tablespoon from bottom to top. Add the chocolate chips and pour the mixture into a mould. Spread the almonds on top of the colomba cake and, if you like, add some pearl sugar. Bake in a conventional oven at 180°C for 40 minutes. Take it out of the oven and leave it to cool down completely before serving.