The pizza dolce (literally: sweet pizza) is the cake for weddings and parties. In the past, before marrying, the couple received the large quantities of ingredients needed to make it as a gift from relatives and families in the neighbourhood: kilos of flour, hundreds of eggs, milk, jam, almonds or other products for the filling. The most expert women went to their home to make it according to the procedures developed by the diversified gastronomic traditions of the hilltop and mountain villages.

In Montorio al Vomano, in the Alta Valle del Vomano, the pizza dolce is a symbol of the local bakers’ confectionery. The elderly women of the village have transmitted the practice in the family or local bakeries, being very careful to give continuity to the creation of this important cake, referring in a generally scrupulous manner to the procedures and raw materials always used. The pizza dolce from Montorio is known in two versions, “all’antica”(old-fashioned) and “alla moderna” (modern), differentiated by the filling: in the first one the sponge cake layers are alternated with the filling of marzipan and ground almonds,  grape jam flavoured with cinnamon, chocolate, toasted and ground almonds and lemon peel, and finally custard; in the second one the layers are sandwiched together with  coffee butter cream and chocolate butter cream. Each layer of sponge cake is first brushed with diluted rum and sprinkled with lemon peel and cinnamon; the one covering the jam, in the middle of the cake, is also moistened with Alchermes, the characteristic liqueur that gives a bright red colour to the sponge cake. Both types of cake are topped with a thin layer of icing or coffee butter icing covered with ground almonds.

Once completed, the pizza dolce is tied and sealed laterally, so that it can  take shape without deforming or yielding due to the weight of the layers and abundant fillings; then it is left to rest for about twenty-four hours, before being served cut into thin slices.