It’s friday at last, the more we are near to holidays the slower the time runs.
Just because I feel masochist I planned to turn on the barbecue on sunday to celebrate the great Fiorentina steak I bought at La Macelleria Bottega from my trusted butcher Stefano.
I’m thinking how to balance the heat of bbq buying a big box of artisan ice cream instead of baking something but I’m not sure, every dish not made is a post not made on the blog and I know exactly what I would like to make and post. 😉
The cake I show you today is a masterpiece of Mantua cooking, it’s a farmer treat made of flour and cornmeal and pork lard: the Gonzagas enriched it with nuts, sugar and spices and now this cake is a real hit.
I adore sbrisolona (sbrisolona means crumbly), I would eat tons of it; it’s quick and easy to make but if you think to serve it at the end of a dinner consider the idea of adding a cream or a mousse or even ice cream to balance the dryness of the cake.
As an alternative to this you can serve sbrisolona with a cup of tea or a less stylish but definetely tasty glass of milk.
- 7 oz almond or almond meal
- 8.8 oz all purpose flour
- 5.3 oz cornmeal
- 7 oz caster sugar
- 4.2 oz butter
- 3.5 oz pork lard
- 2 yolks
- 1/2 lemon zest
- 1/2 vanilla pod seeds
- caster sugar
- chopped hazelnuts
- Use a mixer with blades and insert almonds (or almond meal), lemon zest, vanilla seeds and yolks.
- Mix a little then add flour and cornmeal, butter, lard and sugar.
- Mix again or use your finger tips to put the dough together.
- The dough must be very crumbly; in a baking mould put crumbles and make a layer of about 1, 1 and 1/2 inches.
- Do not press the dough, just pour crumbles in the pan.
- Sprinkle with caster sugar and chopped hazelnuts.
- Bake at 356°F for about 1 hour or untill it's pretty gold.
- You can cut it with a knife when cold but of course it will crumble a lot and pieces will not be even.
- You can store it in a tin box for more than a week.
- The quantities in this recipe are generous, you can make 2 round pans 10 inches diameter; you can put half the dough, raw, into a ziplock bag and freeze it up to 3 months and bake it later.
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