Today I propose making biscuits at home. Apart from the goodness, which is certainly better precisely because you made them yourself, it is the smell of the biscuits that wafts through the house and evokes memories of holidays, festivities and even people, grandmothers and aunts who used to make them.
There are biscuits for every need, biscuits to dip in milk in the morning, elegant biscuits to serve with afternoon tea, ugly but good biscuits and biscuits for children's parties.
I think almost every city and every region has original biscuit recipes and I would like to take a tour of Italy to discover the best biscuits.
Let's start with a recipe from my region, Tuscany, and with cantucci di Prato, typical biscuits from that city that are also well known in the rest of the region, however, and that find their completion dipped in Tuscan Vin Santo.
Cantucci of Prato
Ingredients for the cantucci of Prato
grams 300 of flour
grams 150 of almonds
grams 170 sugar
2 eggs
half a sachet of baking powder
grated peel of 1 lemon
1 pinch of salt
1 beaten egg yolk
Preparation of Prato cantucci
In a container, mix the sugar with the beaten eggs and lemon peel and a pinch of salt. Mix everything well and slowly add the flour and baking powder, finally working with your hands to obtain a homogeneous mixture. Incorporate the almonds into the mixture and knead for a couple more minutes.
Divide the mixture in half and form two loaves into elongated shapes. Brush each loaf with beaten egg yolk and bake in a hot oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes.
Remove the loaves from the oven and after letting them cool but not cool cut them into pieces about a centimetre and a half wide, preferably all the same size.
Place the biscuits back in the oven at 150 degrees for about 20 minutes, turning them halfway through baking to brown them evenly on all sides.
Unmould and leave to cool, these biscuits will keep for several days.
Now a delicious recipe from Liguria, a chocolate and hazelnut shell enclosing chocolate cream and cream.
Baci of Alassio
Ingredients for the baci of Alassio
grams 300 of sugar
grams 350 whole hazelnuts
grams 50 of honey
grams 30 of bitter cocoa powder
the whites of 4 eggs
100 grams of liquid cream
grams 120 of dark chocolate
Preparation of the baci of Alassio
First toast the hazelnuts in a baking tray in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes. Leave to cool, then with a mixer together with the sugar and cocoa powder, chop the hazelnuts very finely until a very fine powder is obtained.
Separately, with an electric beater or whisk, beat the egg whites until stiff. Add the egg whites a little at a time to the hazelnut powder, stirring slowly from the bottom up, and also add the honey. Everything should be incorporated gently.
Put the mixture into a pastry bag and make many little balls of dough on baking paper in a baking tray.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.
Now prepare the ganache cream by placing the chopped dark chocolate and cream on the stove in a small saucepan. Stir and mix everything quickly without letting it boil.
Let the cream cool for about 30 minutes, then whip it with a whisk until it has cooled completely.
Put the mixture into a pastry bag and squeeze a tuft of the mixture onto the base of one biscuit. Place the second biscuit on top of the cream and press gently.
Do this with all the biscuits and serve.
We now go to Sardinia with Sardinian ladyfingers. The ingredients are similar to those of savoiardi but they have a larger and more irregular shape. In Sardinia it is customary to serve them with coffee.
Sardinian ladyfingers
Ingredients for Sardinian ladyfingers
grams 120 of sugar
grams 120 of flour
6 eggs
the zest of half a lemon grated
Preparation of the Sardinian ladyfingers
Whisk the egg whites with half the sugar and set aside
Whip the egg yolks with half the sugar and slowly incorporate the flour and grated lemon zest.
Combine the two mixtures with a bottom-up movement in a gentle manner to prevent the egg whites from breaking up.
Using a pastry bag directly on the oven tray lined with baking paper, form biscuits of about 10 by 3 centimetres, leaving them some distance from each other.
Sprinkle the biscuits with sugar and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes.
Now a typical biscuit from Emilia Romagna, originating however in the Apennines. They are rustic aniseed-scented doughnuts covered in icing. In ancient times they were given as a wedding gift.
Mountain sugars
Ingredients for the mountain sugars
grams 600 flour
grams 100 sugar
3 eggs
grams 40 of aniseed liqueur
80 grams of seed oil
1 sachet of baking powder
For the icing
grams 300 sugar
25 grams of aniseed liqueur
grams 50 of water
Preparation of the mountain sugars
In a bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until frothy.
On the pastry board mix the flour with the baking powder, add the eggs with the sugar, the seed oil and the aniseed liqueur. Work with your hands to obtain a homogeneous mixture.
Roll out the dough with a rolling pin to a thickness of about 1 centimetre.
Cut into strips about 10 centimetres long and 2 centimetres wide. . Take one strip at a time and give it the shape of a string to be joined at the ends to form a sort of small doughnut.
Place the doughnuts on a baking tray over baking paper and bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes.
While the biscuits are baking, prepare the icing. In a large saucepan, melt the sugar with the aniseed liqueur and water until a kind of syrup is obtained.
Place the biscuits directly into the syrup as soon as they have been taken out of the oven, turning them so that the icing adheres on all sides.
Allow the biscuits to cool before serving. These biscuits will keep well for at least two weeks if stored in a closed glass container.
Now we go to Piedmont with cat's tongues, biscuits softened with cream and egg whites and scented with vanilla, perfect for tea or a cup of hot chocolate.
Cat's tongues
Ingredients for cat's tongues
grams 50 of butter
grams 50 of icing sugar
grams 50 of flour
2 egg whites
1 sachet of vanillin
Preparation of cat's tongues
In a bowl, combine the chopped room temperature butter, icing sugar, vanillin and egg whites. Beat with a whisk until smooth, then add the flour. The mixture should be soft.
At this point, using a pastry bag, make sticks about 10 centimetres long on a baking tray lined with baking paper. The biscuits will achieve the classic flattened shape while baking in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for about 10 minutes. When the edges of the biscuits are golden brown, unmould the cat tongues. Allow to cool and serve.
Sfogliatelle abruzzesi
What you need for the sfogliatelle abruzzesi
For the pastry:
grams 500 white flour
grams 60 of sugar
3 eggs
a glass of dry white wine
grams 60 of lard.
For the filling
grape jam, chopped almonds, chocolate, cinnamon and the zest of half a lemon grated
Preparation of the sfogliatelle abruzzesi
Prepare the pastry dough by adding the icing sugar, beaten eggs, glass of white wine and softened lard to the flour.
Make a firm, elastic dough and let it rest for an hour under a cloth.
In the meantime, prepare the filling by mixing the grape jam with chopped almonds, chocolate chips, a pinch of cinnamon and grated lemon peel.
Now prepare the pastry. With a rolling pin, make a very thin sheet. Cut the whole sheet into strips of about 10 centimetres and overlap the strips, brushing between strip and strip with melted lard. Roll up all the strips thus obtained and let it rest for about an hour in the refrigerator enclosed in cling film.
After this time, take the roll and cut slices about 1 centimetre thick.
With a rolling pin flatten the slices until they are about 4 millimetres thick. Place a spoonful of filling on the slice and close in a crescent shape. Place the sfogliatelle on the oven tray and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve either hot or cold.
And finally the recipe for amaretti, biscuits that are prepared in many Italian regions, each with its own variation. The one I want to propose is the recipe for soft amaretti with almonds. Biscuits that are excellent with tea.
Amaretti
Needed for the Amaretti
grams 180 almonds
grams 150 of sugar
grams 50 of icing sugar
3 egg whites
half a sachet of baking powder
Preparation of the Amaretti
First roast the almonds in a preheated oven for 5 minutes at 200 degrees. Once toasted, place the almonds in a blender together with the icing sugar and chop finely until you obtain a kind of powder. In a bowl, put the almond powder together with the sugar, egg whites and baking powder and mix to make the mixture smooth and lump-free.
Let the mixture rest for at least 12 hours in the refrigerator.
After this time has elapsed, make balls of about 3 centimetres and place them on baking paper, quite far apart from each other. Lightly crush the centre of these balls and bake in a preheated oven at 170 degrees for about 20 minutes. Allow them to cool completely before serving.
