Notes about Recipes in this book

• Pizza Margherita topping

  • vickster on September 16, 2013

    Roll thin and put on enough toppings. Evaluate crust after made thinner - was too bready first time.

• Sailor's bread (Pane del marinaio)

  • TrishaCP on February 15, 2020

    This turned out great even though I neglected to follow the shaping instructions and had overly flattened it out. The butteriness was welcome and along with the fennel seed, surprising and delicious. I made this to use up my overstock of candied peel at the end of the holiday season, but I will be marking this down to make again next year.

  • ashallen on December 21, 2019

    The texture and shape of this bread reminds me a bit of American-style Irish soda bread, but it's more buttery and stuffed full of raisins, candied citron and orange peel, nuts, and fennel seeds. I was surprised by how much I liked the fennel seed in combination with the fruit. Wonderfully aromatic flavors - every bite's a bit different and it smells like the winter holidays. Not cloyingly sweet. I used golden raisins (worked well), homemade candied orange peel and candied citron, and slivered almonds instead of pine nuts. I was low on fennel seeds and ended up using 1 scant tablespoon - worked fine - seems like it'd be OK without fennel seed if it's not available. Took longer than 40 minutes to bake, but that might have been because I was opening the oven door to check it! My dough was moister than the recipe seemed to imply it'd be. I was worried it'd be too sticky to knead by hand, but it came together well with floured hands/counter. The final loaf rounds are ~5.5 inches diameter.

• Little cleft rolls (Spaccatini)

  • veronicafrance on December 19, 2020

    These looked like hockey pucks, and the cleft completely disappeared. Fair dos, they are not heavy and they taste OK. A contributing factor could be that I used biga that had been frozen and then left to recuperate for a couple of days before use. It was not massively lively even then.

• Tomato rolls (Panini al pomodoro)

  • veronicafrance on March 21, 2018

    These weren't as flavourful as I expected them to be, but they have a nice soft texture and would be good with soup. I was right to be sceptical about the blob of tomato paste and sprig of rosemary -- they simply burned in the oven. Luckily it was easy to scrape them off; waste of time.

• Cheese focaccia from Recco (Focaccia di Recco)

  • veronicafrance on October 12, 2021

    A couple of things you need to know about this recipe: 1. You must start the day before you want to bake it. 2) It's not like any focaccia you may have seen previously. It's laminated croissant style dough, hence the long lead time. That said, my attempt wasn't massively successful. The final proving took absolutely ages, closer to 4 hours than 3. You can't hurry it by putting it somewhere warm, because there's so much butter in it. The result was flaky but rather flat ... maybe I actually overproved it? Where's Paul Hollywood when you need him? I might have another go because I can imagine it being lovely if you get it right.

• Christmas bread of Milan (Panettone)

  • veronicafrance on November 30, 2017

    I've found most recipes in this book quick and easy, but this one isn't! It's a very involved process with several stages and long rises. I started at 10 a.m. and got the panettone out of the oven almost twelve hours later. Verdict: it is pleasant enough in a brioche-like way, but not as light and airy as it should be. And the crust got overbrowned while I tried to get the middle done. Maybe my mould was a little too big for the amount of mixture (as usual with this book I did half quantity). She does warn you that a too-wide mould will result in the panettone not being tall enough. And perhaps it could have been proved (even) longer on the final 2-hour rise. I will try again! Cook at a lower temperature next time too I think.

  • veronicafrance on December 21, 2017

    I baked this again, with longer rises (including an overnight rise in the fridge), and it was a bit better, but getting it baked through without burning the outside is still problematic. I think my next step is going to be making half-sized ones in coffee tins ... Regarding the overnight rise, because of all the butter I think it would be better to do it at cool room temperature so the butter doesn't harden.

  • chawkins on February 21, 2024

    I really liked this. It was much better than the only other panettone I've ever made, the overnight one from the KA website. It needed an extra 10 minutes of bake time for me and I put a tin foil over it for that last 10 minutes as it was already quite dark on the surface. It tasted very much like stored brought ones. I did not butter my paper mold as that was advised on most other recipes for paper mold; may be she meant that for people using coffee tin for this. I like the way she incorporated the filling ingredients into the dough so that none of them appeared on the surface and got burnt during baking, even though a few did pop out through the scoring on the top. Also her instruction to cool the panettone sideways on a pillow worked real well as shown in the photograph, there was no collapsing. I made half of the recipe and baked in a 6-inch diameter paper mold.

• Raisin bread (Pan tramvai o pane all'uva)

  • veronicafrance on August 20, 2018

    A nice easy fruit bread. It has a *lot* of fruit, pretty much fruit held together with a little bread. Try to squeeze out as much water from the fruit as possible, and err on the side of over- rather than under-baking to avoid sogginess. I didn't have enough sultanas, so I used dried cranberries as well.

• Tuscan sweet bread with raisins (Schiacciata con l'uva)

  • veronicafrance on December 18, 2017

    This is a little bit like dumbed-down panettone: much easier to make, a brioche dough stuffed with sultanas and baked in a tray. There's a bit of a design fault with the recipe: for baking, you are instructed to scatter sultanas liberally over the top of the dough and sprinkle them with sugar. Then bake in a hot oven for 40 minutes. Predictably, I ended up picking burnt-black raisins off the top. She does tell you to soak them in water, presumably to mitigate this scenario, but it doesn't work. Not sure of the best solution. You could add the top layer of sultanas halfway through baking, but then they'd just roll around on top of the crust. Maybe cover it with foil for part of the baking time. Anyway, it's pleasant enough. I had to add a couple of tablespoons of flour to get the dough consistency she specified, and I supplemented the sultanas with chopped dried apricots because I didn't have enough. I'd add chopped candied peel next time to make it even more panettone-like.

• Chocolate bread (Pane alla cioccolata)

  • veronicafrance on July 09, 2019

    Carol comes up trumps again. A very easy bread, dough easy to work with in a stand mixer, done in about four hours. The result was nice and light with a good flavour. Perhaps a little sweeter than I expected, you could get away with less sugar. It will be great with marmalade, and any leftovers will make fantastic bread and butter pudding.

• Milk bread (Pane al latte)

  • veronicafrance on August 14, 2017

    Another straightforward and successful recipe from this book: a light brioche-style loaf. It's one that would have really benefited from a photo or even a line drawing though. I had to read the instructions several times to figure out what to do (basically: form three loaves each made of five "cigars" of dough pressed together at the ends). At least that's what I think I was supposed to do, and later googling found a blogger who'd interpreted it the same way as me. I'd put in a smidgin more salt next time.

• Whole-wheat bread (Pan bigio)

  • veronicafrance on June 03, 2017

    I've enjoyed the flavour of everything I've tried from this book so far, including this recipe, but the appearance leaves a lot to be desired. It didn't help that I foolishly tried to bake two loaves on a single pizza stone -- they merged into each other. I'm going to revert to my standard method of proving in bannetons and baking in cast-iron casseroles for my next attempt. Note, once again the quantity given is enormous. No way would my domestic stand mixer have coped with close to 2 kg of dough. I halved it.

  • twoyolks on December 15, 2015

    The bread has nice whole wheat flavor without being overpowered by the bitterness. The biga provides just a hint of sour which complements the whole wheat nicely. The crumb is nice and open without too many large holes. This is a very wet dough which makes it tough to work with and tough to shape. I shaped the bread on a board then moved into to parchment. This lead to a flatter loaf than I would've preferred. Next time, I'd shape it directly on the parchment.

• Potato bread (Pane di patate)

  • veronicafrance on May 15, 2018

    This makes a bread with a soft interior and tender crust. As the recipe says, good for dipping in sauces. The dough was very lively ... after an hour it was exploding out of the bowl. Easy to work with though as it's quite stiff and not sticky. I couldn't follow the cooking instructions exactly because I only have a single round pizza stone, and the two loaves wouldn't fit. So I heated the stone anyway and put the baking tray with the loaves on top of it. This meant I couldn't flip them and cook upside down as she suggests, so I slashed the tops instead. They spread rather than rose, but the end result is still good. They do brown rather quickly before they are cooked -- I turned them several times to brown them evenly.

• Tomato bread (Pane al pomodoro)

  • veronicafrance on June 17, 2017

    Another very good bread. I let it over-prove as it took much less time than advertised ... probably because it was about 26C in my kitchen. But it still turned out with a nice even, soft crumb. The breads in this book are so quick and easy! As usual I proved in a banetton and baked in a cast-iron casserole. I might make two small loaves next time, as this makes one very large one. I'd also up the quantity of tomatoes -- I went for the low-end 60g, but 100g would have been better. If you want to make it even tastier, I reckon you could add some grated cheese along with the tomatoes.

• Rosemary bread (Panmarino)

  • veronicafrance on August 20, 2017

    This sounded good, but I was disappointed with the result. I made a half quantity; the dough was so dry and flaky initially that I added a further 20 g or so of water. It was the firmest dough I've worked with in a long time. It rose well and quickly, but made no further progress in the oven, and the end result was too dense. The flavour was good, but I'd have liked a more ciabatta-like structure. If I made it again I'd certainly add more water.

  • Zosia on April 15, 2014

    Dense, chewy, crusty bread with the lovely fragrance and flavour of rosemary. The dough was quite stiff and a challenge to shape (I made sandwich buns/120g ea) but otherwise very easy to make.

• Green-peppercorn bread (Pane al pepe verde)

  • veronicafrance on November 20, 2017

    A nice soft loaf, and as Carol Field says the peppercorns add flavour without being overwhelming. I did the usual tap test when I took it out of the oven, and along with visual clues it appeared baked, but when it cooled the bottom crust was a bit soft and the crumb a little moister than I'd have liked, so it definitely needs a bit longer, until it is well coloured. An easy and quick bake.

• Whole-wheat bread with honey (Pane integrale con miele)

  • veronicafrance on June 05, 2017

    I made this into ten ~95 g rolls, baking them for about 25 minutes. Delicious, with a slight sweetness from the honey, but not so much that you can't treat it as normal bread, and a nice nutty flavour which would go well with soft cheeses. The dough is very easy to work compared to my usual wet sourdoughs. Instead of the 50 g of overnight sponge, I used 40 g left-over biga and 10 g water. I found it quite bizarre that she tells you to make about 200 g of sponge, then throw all except 50 g away.

• Universal starter (Biga)

  • veronicafrance on June 03, 2017

    Quick to do, and a shortcut to get a bit of sourdough flavour.

• Como bread (Pane di Como)

  • veronicafrance on July 15, 2017

    This was a perfectly acceptable white loaf, but not really special. It does make very good toast.

• Como bread of the past, or French bread (Pane di Como antico o pane Francese)

  • veronicafrance on June 08, 2017

    Not a "wow" bread, but the results were very good, as are almost all recipes in this book so far. An even crumb, light crust, and lovely chewy texture. The small amount of wholewheat gives it a pale beige colour. Notes: the first rise took much longer than specified, about 4 hours -- maybe because my biga was a few days old (there's no yeast in the recipe other than what's in the biga). I then did the second rise overnight in the fridge as it was too late to do otherwise; it was a little overproved when I put it in the oven. Also, after previous experiences with this book, I used my standard sourdough method of proving in bannetons and baking in cast-iron casseroles. I didn't slash the loaves but think they might have looked better if I had.

  • twoyolks on January 29, 2018

    The flavor was really good on this but the crumb was very dense. I suspect that it didn't rise quite enough for the second rise. There's virtually no oven spring. Basically, the recipe just didn't work for me.

  • emiliang on July 28, 2013

    Really great flavor, especially for a non-sourdough bread, but the raising times are much longer than specified in the recipe. The first fermentation took about 12 hours at 75 degrees. For that reason, though, this is probably the tastiest commercial yeast-based bread I've ever made.

  • emiliang on August 04, 2013

    Notes to myself: include an autolyze period; also, incorporate 2-3 stretch-and-folds into the first couple of hours of fermentation. Even better after an additional 12 hours in the fridge. When ready to bake: shape it, proof it and let it return to room temperature (about 2-2:30 hours) before scoring and placing it in the oven.

  • Zosia on October 25, 2014

    Flavour and crumb were good but there were no directions to slash the baguettes....I didn't and they split during baking. Crust development was fine but the loaves were a little pale; I'll bake them at a higher temperature next time.

• Slipper-shaped bread from Lake Como (Ciabatta)

  • veronicafrance on May 08, 2017

    I like the clear, precise instructions in this book, but I wasn't completely satisfied with the result of this. My loaves seemed too flat, and as twoyolks said, the holes weren't as big as you would expect for ciabatta. It wasn't a failure, and it tastes OK; I just wish I knew what to adjust to improve it. I'll probably try the other ciabatta recipe which has a higher hydration next.

  • twoyolks on February 13, 2016

    The bread developed good flavor but the crumb was too tight for this to be ciabatta.

• Ciabatta from the Veneto (Ciabatta Polesana)

  • veronicafrance on October 26, 2018

    An atypically troublesome recipe. The dough as specified was basically about the consistency of pancake batter. I added handfuls of extra flour. After three hours it had barely risen (probably because it was too liquid), so I put it in the fridge overnight, intending to deal with it the next afternoon. But I forgot, so another day passed before I got it out and poured half of it onto a peel. By now it had at least shown signs of life and had good long strands of gluten. The end result is OK, but not attractive to look at; my reputation would be ruined if I served it to guests. I'm repurposing the rest as biga ...

  • twoyolks on February 15, 2016

    This bread had great flavor and a light, airy crumb. The crust was chewy, but not tough. The dough is very wet and there was virtually no oven spring, so the bread ended up being very short. It took closer to 6 or 7 hours to triple in volume as opposed to the 3 hours called for in the recipe. I used King Arthur bread flour for the high-gluten flour.

• Olive oil bread (Pane all'olio)

  • veronicafrance on June 19, 2018

    I went out and let these over-prove, so they turned out a bit like mini ciabattas -- I'd have preferred them to be more roll-shaped. The second rise really only needed an hour at most. They tasted good though; I used a strongly flavoured Spanish olive oil, and duck fat instead of lard because I'm in southwest France, not Italy. Next time I wouldn't sprinkle salt on top -- it made them too salty for my taste.

• Terni bread (Pane di Terni)

  • veronicafrance on March 16, 2018

    Another good bread, with a nice crisp crust. Be aware that it requires biga, which you need to make the day before. I did the salty version as saltless bread doesn't keep so well, and as usual I halved the recipe, making two loaves. It came out looking rather like ciabatta, and I had a problem with the parchment sticking to one of the loaves. I put it in the oven with the parchment in place and easily removed it after 10 minutes. But next time I'll revert to putting them in bannetons for final proving.

• Bread of Puglia (Pane Pugliese)

  • veronicafrance on May 13, 2017

    I was really pleased with how this turned out using French T65 flour. The sloppy, rather rough dough looks unpromising but it turned out loaves with an even, airy crumb and a crackling mahogany coloured crust. Unlike twoyolks I found the flavour excellent, especially still warm and slathered with butter, but I used some leftover biga that had been in the fridge a few days and that probably made a difference. I know the shape of these oval, rather flat loaves is authentic, but I'd be tempted to prove it in well-floured bannetons next time. Also, this recipe makes *a lot* of bread; the dough almost overflowed the bowl of my stand mixer, and I ended up with three large loaves. Unless you're feeding an army, I'd halve the recipe.

  • twoyolks on January 30, 2016

    The crumb of this bread was airy and rustic but there really wasn't much flavor to the bread.

• Half-moon-shaped filled pizza from Puglia (Calzoni Pugliese)

  • twoyolks on March 24, 2016

    The dough for these was very good but the actual filling was bland. Also, the tomato pieces got extremely hot and took a long time to cool down.

• Venetian holiday bread (Veneziana)

  • twoyolks on January 01, 2019

    The bread had a nice crumb with a flavor that was heavy on the citrus. By itself, it felt like it was missing something. It did make a nice bread pudding.

  • Zosia on January 22, 2015

    Lovely, sweet, yeast-raised bread, like a fruit-free panettone with a crunchy sweet almond crust and a most airy and delicate crumb. The shaped dough doubles in size during the final proof, then doubles again during baking so make sure you use the recommended pan size though it may appear too large at the start. A one day bread made without a biga, I'm not sure of its shelf life but it will make fantastic french toast.

• Easter pizza (Pizza di Pasqua)

  • twoyolks on April 17, 2017

    The bread tasted like it should be sweeter than it actually was. There just wasn't as much flavor as I was hoping for.

• Sicilian bread (Pane Siciliano)

  • Zosia on February 11, 2014

    Perhaps not as good as Peter Reinhart's 3-day version, but with a crisp crust, chewy crumb and nutty flavour, perfectly acceptable for a same day bread.

• Country bread with bran (Campagnolo)

  • Zosia on April 08, 2014

    Great sandwich bread that toasted beautifully. I allowed the dough to ferment in the fridge overnight so the loaves had very good flavour and no trace of bitterness from the added bran.

• Herb bread (Pane all'erbe)

  • Zosia on February 05, 2014

    Wonderfully fragrant loaf with a crackly crust and soft crumb speckled with fresh parsley. I sautéed the onion and garlic first in the oil needed for the recipe and baked as (100g) sandwich buns (19 minutes).

• Pizza of Naples (Pizza alla Napoletana)

  • Zosia on February 25, 2014

    Baked up with a perfectly crisp bottom crust but wasn't particularly flavourful and was missing the chewiness I prefer in a pizza crust. I won't be making this again since there are many, much better, same-day pizza crust recipes out there.

• Whole-wheat flatbreads (Schiacciate integrale)

  • Zosia on August 29, 2014

    Like focaccia in flavour and a nice crisp and chewy pizza crust in texture, this recipe was a big hit. But I don't know what I was thinking when I followed the directions to make only 6 pizzette....10 would have a more reasonable size. Lacking lard, I used vegetable shortening.

• Little rolls from Florence (Semelle)

  • Zosia on February 21, 2014

    Cute little dinner rolls with a crisp exterior and soft crumb. Made from a lean dough, they weren't as flavourful as those made with a preferment, but they were good for the little amount of time and effort that went into them.

• Breadsticks from Turin (Grissini Torinesi)

  • Zosia on February 15, 2014

    Easy to make, especially in a food processor, and much better than store-bought, but in the end, you have to be a fan of breadsticks to appreciate these. My family are clearly not fans. I liked them but did prefer them warm from the oven while they were still chewy. They baked in 15 minutes in my oven.

• Waves (Onde)

  • lawrencecharcuterie on March 21, 2021

    My first time at this specific recipe and this style of cookie. The dough should be moist and dense but soft enough to be piped, reads the recipe. My dough was two firm for the piping bag. I used a small scoop to make sure the dough didn't go to waste. I'll look for a different recipe in the future and see if I can compare it to this one to understand better where I might have gone wrong.

• Sweet corn buns (Meini o pani de mei)

  • ashallen on August 16, 2019

    These were really interesting pastries - they came out of the oven looking like giant puffy cookies. The flavors are gentle but very nice - honey (I used a strongly flavored wildflower honey), almond, and cornmeal. Even though I tend to gravitate towards strong flavors and moist pastries, I found these to be strangely addictive. The buns themselves aren't super-sweet, so the sugar glaze is very good if you like sweetness. They're also not a naturally super-moist pastry, so don't overbake. There was a little gumminess in the center of the some of them when they were eaten soon after coming out of the oven, but it dissipated once the buns sat around overnight.

• Raisin cornmeal cookies from Venice (Zaletti)

  • ashallen on May 12, 2020

    A lightly crunchy, tea biscuit-type cookie. Not super sweet and flavors are fairly gentle. I thought my husband wouldn't pay much attention to these given their unassuming nature, but he found them immediately, ate a small pile, and thinks they're great. I rolled the dough into two logs and chilled overnight to make slicing easier. If you cut 3/8-inch slices as specified in the recipe, you'll get fewer than the specified 60 cookie yield - 1/4-inch slices are needed for that. Either way, I found the cookies were lightly browned after 12-15 minutes vs. 20 minutes as specified in the recipe. Recipe says cookies will puff and spread during baking, but mine didn't do much of either so I was able to bake them pretty close to each other. I substituted golden raisins for dark raisins - worked well. Next time I'd chop them up before soaking in rum so they'd distribute more evenly through the cookie dough.

• Buttery horseshoe-shaped cookies from Piedmont (Crumiri)

  • ashallen on September 14, 2019

    Great, delicately flavored cookies that were lightly crispy around the edges but flexible in the middle. I used a very finely ground stone-ground cornmeal (House Autry) so there was little grittiness in the texture. Flavors would work well with all kinds of supplemental flavorings if one wanted some variation - almond, orange, lemon, vanilla, or various spices. My cookies came out much paler than the photo in the book, in part because I used an insulated cookie sheet. But I also noticed that many other recipes for this cookie online call for baking the cookies longer than this recipe did - I'll try browning them more next time and see what that does for the flavor/texture. Recipe also seem a bit off on either the yield or the shaping instructions - I followed the shaping instructions carefully but got 36 cookies vs. 24 as specified in the recipe.

• Almond paste (Pasta di mandorle)

  • ashallen on June 16, 2020

    I've always wanted to try making homemade almond paste, both because it seemed like a fun project and because it can be made for a fraction of the cost of the 7 oz tubes in the supermarket. Finally got around to it - it looks and tastes great! Amazing! Looking forward to experimenting and seeing how it behaves in baked goods. Fresher almond flavor than the supermarket paste and a fine, moldable texture - maybe a bit dryer than the supermarket paste? I blanched whole raw almonds and ground them in a Vitamix blender with the "dry blade" jar. Had to scrape down the jar a few times, but overall the grinding didn't take tons of time. Made a half batch which worked fine. Following the metric weights for ingredients, recipe yield is understated - a full recipe yields 1050-1100 g versus the stated 900 g.

• Italian cheesecake (Crostata di ricotta)

  • ashallen on November 24, 2019

    Very nice pastry. I used the author's Pasta Frolla III which made a very tender crust with a flavor that worked very nicely with the filling. Filling formed a creamy, raisin-filled custard layer on the bottom and a lighter/foamier custard layer on top. Baked in a 9.5-inch pyrex pie plate which was big enough to hold all the filling. Unfortunately, the crust on the back side of the cheesecake slices tended to break away from the rest of the slice, so I might try using a 10" springform pan next time or the other suggested crust recipe. I'll also chop up the raisins a bit next time - the cheesecake would slice more neatly (and they'd absorb even more Marsala!) if the raisins were chopped. Tasted best when warm - I zapped it in the microwave when serving from storage in the refrigerator.

• Rice tart (Torta di riso)

  • ashallen on November 24, 2019

    This recipe as written had so many issues that I'm guessing it contains errors - or I misunderstood it big time! Recipe specifies 8" springform pan. Pastry quantity called for made a very thin crust. I lined author's Pasta Frolla III with foil+weights during partial blind-baking - it stuck to foil and tore as I removed foil. I patched crust back together. Crust slid down springform pan's vertical sides during the second blind-baking phase - I pressed it back up pan sides. I used the originario rice specified in recipe - stovetop cooking took much longer than specified - perhaps rice was old/dry? Rice mixture filled pan nearly to brim. Recipe specified 30 minutes in oven at which point it was only 105F (salmonella city!) and soupy in middle. I threw up my hands in surrender, scooped out soupy middle, and popped the remains in the oven until done. I microwaved the "soup" to finish cooking it. Final product tasted like rice pudding on pastry - fine, but not spectacular! Aargh!

• Cornmeal cake (Amor polenta)

  • ashallen on July 30, 2019

    This is basically a cornmeal sponge cake. Like many sponge cakes, I find it to be kind of plain on its own but it does well in the company of sauces, whipped cream, and/or fruit. I used a very finely ground whole grain cornmeal so there was little grittiness in the cake. I didn't have maraschino liqueur on hand and substituted 1 tsp almond extract. The almond extract's flavor was good, but next time I'll use Amaretto since going from 2-4 tbsp liqueur to 1 tsp extract probably made for a drier cake (and it'd be nice if the cake was moister). The recipe calls for baking the cake in two rehrucken pans. I used two 9x5-inch loaf pans instead - not as pretty, but they worked fine.

• Almond paste cookies enclosing a wild cherry (Marasche)

  • ashallen on June 24, 2020

    These are fun cookies - the almond paste shell is a bit chewy and crunchy and the cherry filling is a bit juicy. Gluten-free. I used Trader Joe's amarena cherries which are quite sweet - I'd prefer a cherry that was a bit more sour or boozy next time to balance out the sweetness and make the cookies less candy/confection-like. These would be fun on a holiday cookie platter with their cherry-red filling. I used the author's homemade almond paste recipe - worked very well. Almond paste mixture was quite sticky in my 72F kitchen after mixing in 2 tbsp egg white (recipe says to use 1-2 egg whites). Sticking the dough in the freezer for a while made it much easier to handle. I used a buttered cookie sheet vs. parchment paper - moving cookies quickly to a drying rack was best since the more they cooled on the sheet, the more they wanted to stick to it!

• Fregolata from Venice (Fregolata Veneziana)

  • ashallen on May 06, 2020

    Great shortbread-type cookie. Delicious almond-lemon flavor and a wonderfully sandy texture without being bone-dry or brittle. I used a finely ground, whole-grain cornmeal (House Autry) and substituted demerara sugar for turbinado sugar in the topping. Used 1.5 tbsp sugar for the topping - 2 tbsp of sugar topping is very generous, even for a 9-inch version, and might not stick fully. It was also pretty sweet so I'll use a scant 1 tbsp in the future. Press nut topping lightly into dough - I skipped doing that and some of the almond bits popped off easily after baking. Baked in a 9-inch Pyrex pie plate which worked well. Cookie browned quite a bit around edges but that didn't harm the flavor.