The Deceptively Life-Like Marzipan Fruits Still Made In This Italian Nunnery

In Sicily in late October, café-goers bask in the still-hot sun while a cerulean sky frames russet-leafed trees. Along the crowded streets in Palermo, Sicily’s capital, pastry shop windows seem to have transformed into fruit displays. Rosy peaches, crimson strawberries and slices of juicy watermelon appear to be growing miraculously out of season on the Italian island.

On closer inspection, however, these glossy fruits and vegetables turn out to be astonishingly accurate replicas made from marzipan. The exquisite creations are called frutta martorana and are traditionally produced for All Soul’s Day on November 2.

Frutta martorana can now be seen colorfully adorning shop windows across Palermo, sometimes throughout the year. But its origins are thought to be found in a convent hidden inside a monumental church in the heart of the city. The Chiesa di Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, dubbed Martorana, lines Piazza Bellini along with the red-domed church of San Cataldo and the baroque facade of the church of Santa Caterina.

The elaborate doorway of the Martorana gives access to the 12th-century building behind, a spectacular example of Palermo’s Arab-Norman architecture. Inside the church, soaring marble columns are topped by arches and domes covered in glittering gold mosaics. Baroque grills in the walls are the only indication that another world once lay beyond, closed off from everyday life.

In the church’s convent, founded in 1194, nuns would have lived under strict cloister rules. But while they could not meet with members of the public, they did have a sideline in serving them home baking. As in many monasteries in the city, the sisters made delicate and sumptuous pastries they would sell to passers-by through a metal wheel in the wall. Each convent had its specialty dish made to a secret recipe only passed down orally through the generations.

At the Martorana nunnery, the signature sweet was invented in the 12th century. As the tale goes, an influential archbishop had announced a visit in early November. The nuns wanted to spruce up the cloister for his arrival, so they decided to decorate the bare trees by making vivid replicas of fruits in marzipan.

Palermo’s monastery bakeries have now disappeared with one exception. Opposite the Martorana, pastries are still produced to perfection in the ex-convent of the church of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria. It is now a museum, meaning you can visit the stuccoed corridors and delicately tiled cells surrounding a graceful cloister.

In the kitchens, talented hands recreate the ancient recipes of the nuns, including cannoli bursting with ricotta cream, little white icing domes topped with a cherry known as St Agatha’s breasts, and mounds of jewel-colored frutta martorana. The fruits are made using molds for the marzipan, then decorated painstakingly by hand to create delicacies too beautiful to eat. Almost.

The church and monastery are open every day from 10.00 to 18.00.