It is the typical dessert of the Easter holidays and for years Italian pastry chefs have brought it to levels of artisan excellence never known before, thanks to research, top quality raw materials, increasingly refined processing experience. But all this has rightly raised the price of the Craft dove increasingly in demand and which cannot be missing on Easter tables together with the chocolate egg. This is what emerges fromColdiretti/Ixe' investigation on the Easter of the Italians in which it is highlighted that the dove is present in 71% of the tables, five percentage points more than the chocolate egg.
However more than four out of 10 households (41%) this year also due to the high prices triggered by the war in Ukraine i traditional Easter sweets, will be prepared at home, including despite the difficulty of preparation, the doves.
In fact, we are witnessing a true rediscovery of traditional desserts, a trend driven by high prices that has not spared pastry products, linked above all to increases in energy costs. In families we have thus returned to the stove recovering ancient recipesand, starting from those of the peasant tradition che runs throughout the boot as the Coldiretti study recalls.
If in Abruzzo there are the spectacular horses and dolls, shortcrust pastry biscuits enriched with a hard-boiled egg, in Basilicata we find the pannarelle, which are Easter preparations often in the shape of a braid or heart closed in a circle with an egg in the center to conjure up the idea of a basket full of sweets for the kids. In Calabria there are cuculi, typical Easter sweets made with a rather sugary bread dough, adding a few drops of anise and lemon zest to give it a characteristic note of flavour. In Campania, the pastiera and Lentens cannot be missing on the Easter tables, characterized by a large quantity of almonds inside the dough. From Emilia comes the Bensòne which is one of the oldest sweets produced in the Modena area with an oval shape, filled with plum and black cherry jam.
The rich tradition of traditional Easter sweets throughout the peninsula
Friuli, on the other hand, gives away the pincer, an ancient tradition sweet which looks like a rounded loaf on which a cross is engraved to symbolize the martyrdom of Christ. And from the Friulian pinch we move on to the sweet pizza of Lazio typical of Rome, a cake in the shape of a very fragrant and very tasty panettone while the Pigna di Pasqua is typical of the Ciociaria rich in raisins, candied fruit, vanilla, cinnamon, anise.
And if in Liguria we find the Easter canestrelli, woven baskets of shortcrust pastry, with sometimes colored eggs in the center or on the edges, from Lombardy comes the classic Easter dove made with flour, butter, eggs, sugar and candied orange peel , with an almond glaze and in the Marche region you cannot give up the Easter donuts, delicious biscuits prepared according to an ancient recipe and perfected by the so-called "vergare" the women of the Marche house who begin to knead the donuts on Good Friday to let them rest and then cook them on Easter day. In Molise, traditionally, for Easter, the pine cone is prepared, which is a sort of donut made with flour and eggs. In Piedmont, on the other hand, we have the exquisite salami of the Pope, a delicious chocolate salami and the tiny tyras that children gladly dip in milk and adults in a sweet wine. In Apulia, the scarcelle shortbread biscuits with sugar, flour, eggs, oil, lemon zest and sometimes milk are inevitable. In Sardinia we find the Pardulas made with cheese or ricotta and the Aranzada nugoresa very fine threads of orange peel cooked slowly in honey and enriched with threads of toasted almonds.
In Tuscany, on the other hand, we have the Schiacciata Pisana, a sweet bread with the unmistakable aroma of aniseed which is accompanied by vin santo. In Trentino Alto Adige we find the Easter crown, a sweet leavened braid and also the fochaz-osterbrot, a flat sweet bread made from wheat flour, generally in the shape of a bunny. In Umbria, on the other hand, we have Ciaramicola, a typical Easter cake with alchermes, meringue and colored sprinkles. In Val d'Aosta, on the occasion of the festivity - highlights Coldiretti - the tradition involved the preparation of flantse or flantson, flattened rye loaves, usually round in shape, to which a little sugar was added, perhaps a little butter, raisins, almonds and candied fruit to make the gift even more special.
In Veneto, on the other hand, the sweet of the peasant tradition is called fugassa and boasts very ancient origins. Tradition has it that Venetian focaccia was created by a Treviso baker who, on the occasion of Easter, added other ingredients to the bread dough, such as eggs, butter and sugar, all in moderate quantities given the costs, thus obtaining a soft and sweet bread. to give to your customers. In Sicily we find the cuddura cu l'ova, which is a sweet dough, similar to a shortcrust pastry, which contains whole hard-boiled eggs, a dough which is then decorated with colored sprinkles, baked in the oven and, sometimes, subsequently completed with white icing .
