What are Fave Dei Morti cookies?

I decided not to translate the name of these biscuits in the title, Fave Dei Morti, as I’m not sure how many people would want to read about cookies called “Broad Beans of the Dead”.  They don’t sound very appetising in English! The almond cookies are traditionally made in many regions of Italy at the end of October to be eaten during the period of Ognissanti, or All Saints’ Day. I read in a few places that these cookies were originally eaten at funerals in Ancient Greece.  I don’t know whether this is true or not, but it’s kind of nice to think that people could have a tiny taste of joy at such a sad event.

The origins of  fave dei morti

The biscuits were originally made with broad beans, but the main ingredient was changed to almonds as broad beans can be very toxic for certain people. In many Mediterranean countries, such as Italy, there is a hereditary condition called favism. For these people, eating broad beans leads to nasty symptoms and possible death (so the cookies were actually very aptly named once upon a time). The name fave has stuck, but now pretty much everyone can eat them without worrying about their health afterwards.

To colour, or not to colour?

The recipe for the fave dei morti cookies varies a little in different parts of Italy. Depending on where they are made also changes whether they are coloured or just left with the dough’s natural colour.  I liked the idea of making colourful biscuits, so I decided make them as they do in the North-East of Italy, with three different hues.  The red ones you see in the photo should actually be pink, not red.  I got a little carried away with the food colouring!  They tasted delicious anyway, but maybe are not as traditional to look at as they should be.

This post is part of the Cucina Conversations group.  This month you can find recipes from its members, celebrating Ognisanti and the Fall season. Here’s what you can check out:

Marialuisa’s Nzulli biscotti with almonds

Carmen’s Savoiardi biscuits

Rosemarie’s Castagnaccio

Francesca’s Fettuccine con Zucca e Porcini

Flavia’s Apple Torta Sbrisolona

Daniela’s Chestnut Pancakes (Necci) with Ricotta

By Lisa Watson

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Fave dei Morti

Colourful Fave Dei Morti Cookies are made in Italy at the end of October to celebrate "Ognisanti" (All Saints). Find the easy recipe to make them here.

Course cookies, Snack, sweet

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 25 minutes minutes

Servings 45 cookies

Ingredients

• 150 g All-purpose flour 1 1/4 cups
• 250 g Peeled almonds 8.8 oz
• 50 g Pine-nuts 1.8 oz.
• 100 g Icing sugar 3.5 oz.
• 2 Eggs
• Lemon zest from 1 lemon
• 2 tsp Cocoa powder
• 1 pinch or drop Red Food Colouring

Instructions

• Heat the oven to 180°C /350°F.
• Use a food processor to blend the almonds and pine-nuts into a  "flour".
• Beat the eggs until they become thick.
• Sieve the all-purpose flour and icing sugar. Add it to the 'nut' flour, and mix.
• Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix well.
• Break the dough into three pieces.
• Knead the lemon zest into one ball, the cocoa powder into the second, and the food colouring into the third, until they are evenly coloured.
• Roll the dough balls into long sausages.
• Line a baking tray with baking paper, then break off bits of dough a little smaller than the size of a walnut and roll them into a ball, then flatten them very slightly. Place them on the baking tray with at least 5 cm/2 in distance between the cookies.
• Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until they are slightly browned.
• The cookies can keep for a week in an air-tight container.

These cookies from Puglia has nothing to do with marzipan

Before you start thinking biscuits made of marzipan, stop right there.  These are delicious biscuits called marzapani, but the only thing they have in common with the almond paste is that they are made with lots and lots of almonds.  Marzapani are a combination of crunchy biscuit made with almonds and meringue that come from way down South in Puglia.  I’ve talked about Puglia already……..Are you beginning to get a sinking feeling that it may turn into another ranting phase like the Sicily overload I put you through last year? Sorry (well, not really!), but these two areas of Italy are too fabulous to not wax lyrical about, so bear with me! This recipe for marzapani comes from Lina, the delightful owner of Casina Montana, the lovely agriturismo we stayed at when we were hanging out in Puglia for a few days. There’s already a photo of the agriturismo in my post on torta caprese.  If you’re not convinced about going there by that photo, have a look at the photo below of the breakfast they serve up every day, then try to tell me that you’re still not interested! The pie in the front is a pasticciotto, which is relatively easy to make at home. You too can have breakfast like a Southern Italian.

Only four ingredients

Marzapani biscuits are very simple to make and only have four ingredients!  I’m amazed that you can make something that tastes so incredibly good using so few ingredients.  I discovered that it’s a very forgiving recipe as well.  As I didn’t have enough whole almonds in the cupboard, I used a mixture of peeled almonds, non-peeled almonds, sliced almonds and almond flour (I was impressed also at how many different types of almond products I had lying around), and it came out great!  I do suggest using some non-peeled almonds as it makes the finished result look pretty and gives the marzapani biscuits more texture.

How to make marzapani if you don’t have a standing mixer

If you don’t have a food processor, you can put the almonds in a large plastic bag and whack them with a rolling pin.  That’s a great exercise for getting out any frustrations you may be carrying around, but don’t get too enthusiastic and start hitting other things (or offending people)!.  If you don’t have a standing mixer to make the meringue, either use and eggbeater or whip them by hand.  If you whip them by hand, change arms every now and then, and then you won’t need to go to the gym that day: see, making marzapani is not only good for your taste-buds, but also great for your body! If you don’t have an oven, there’s not much I can do about that….

Why is everyone gluten-free these days?

Another great thing about these marzapani biscuits is that they are gluten-free!  I seem to be running into more and more people these days with gluten intolerance, so I’m always on the look-out for recipes for friends who have issues digesting gluten.  I wonder: is it a problem that’s occurring more often in our chemical soaked lives, or is it just that people are more aware of it now that they were 20 years ago?  In Italy, many supermarkets now seem to have a whole aisle dedicated to  gluten-free foods, which shows how wide-spread it must be in Italy at least.

Anyway, you don’t really need any of these excuses to make marzapani except for one: they taste stupendously good!  I highly recommend that you run to the kitchen right now and make a batch.

By Lisa Watson

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Marzapani biscuits from Puglia, Italy

Marzapani biscuits are very simple to make and only have four ingredients!  They are made with almonds of all different kinds. 

Course Dessert, sweet

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 20 -30 biscuits

Ingredients

• 250 g Almonds with skin 8.8 oz
• 250 g Peeled almonds 8.8 oz
• 3 Egg whites
• 1 packet or 1 tsp vanilla essence Vanilla sugar
• 350 g White sugar 1 3/4 cups

Instructions

• Grind the almonds into the consistency of coarse meal using a food processor.
• Using a standing mixer, or an eggbeater, beat the egg whites until foamy. Continue to beat until stiff peaks form, adding the sugar bit by bit while still beating.
• Stir in the vanilla sugar.
• Divide the meringue mixture roughly in two.
• Add one part of the meringue to the ground almonds and mix together.
• Turn out onto the bench and form it into a square or rectangle.  Use a rolling pin or your hands to make it about 1/2cm thick.
• Cover the dough with the rest of the egg mixture.
• CAREFULLY cut the dough into rectangles (or squares!) and place them on a cookie tray lined with baking paper.
• Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 15-18 minutes.

Sbrisolona: the cakey-biscuit from Romeo’s Mantova in Italy

Is it a cake? Or is it a biscuit? Or shall we just not care about the semantics and gobble it all up?!! This is a delicious cake/giant biscuit called sbrisolona, which is a specialty from the beautiful city of Mantova, which I have written about once before.  You can buy it from gastronomie (kind of like delicatessens) and souvenir shops all over the city. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to get there on the spur of the moment for most people. So, to get a taste of Mantova, you can make it at home very quickly.  If you then wrap it in clear cellophane, put a ribbon around it and stick a little card on it with the word Mantova written on it in fancy writing, you could even impress your friends and pretend you HAVE been there and just thought you’d bring them back a souvenir. Just read a guidebook first about the area so you can drop some place names from around there into the conversation to sound more authentic. Say things like, “Oh the Palazzo del Té was beyond description!”, and say, “you must try tortelli di zucca when you go there!”, but never, NEVER say, “the views from our hotel of the Colosseum were stunning!”……then, I’m afraid, you may be exposed.

How did Sbrisolona get its name?

The name sbrisolona comes from the fact that  it is an incredibly crumbly cake.  In Italian “sbriciolare” means “to crumble”. In fact, sbrisolona should not be cut to serve it, but pieces of it should be broken off.  If you do decide to make this, you will very quickly discover that you don’t actually have a choice in the way you serve it.  Anyway, part of the joy of eating it is scraping up all the crumbs that are left behind, because as we all know very well, broken bits of biscuit have no calories!

In the past, this recipe traditionally used strutto, or lard in English, which is rendered fat from under the skin of pigs (OK, that does sound disgusting, but it tastes really good). I used only butter in this recipe, and from what my mouth remembers from the real thing that I ate in Mantova, the difference in taste is negligible. Sbrisolona is extremely easy to make as you throw all the ingredients in a bowl together, mix them a little and then throw the crumbly mess into the oven.  The finished product somehow manages to look as though you’ve spent hours making it. I firmly believe that  if people want to believe it, I’m not going to enlighten them! It never hurts to make everyone think you’ve been working in the kitchen longer than you really have. Then they feel too intimidated to try the recipe you just made….because if they did, they would realize that it’s no big deal to make and your cooking prowess would drop a few notches.

Other almond recipes for you to try

When I made this recipe, I ended up having enough to make two cakes.  They both seem to have disappeared very quickly, and it keeps really well for several weeks, so don’t hesitate to make it!  If you’re looking for other almond cookie recipes, check out my good friend, Azlin Blloor’s blog called Lin’s Food.  She has the most delicious recipe for Moroccan Almond Cookies there.  I can say that from experience because I made them.!

Travel photo of the week

This photo below is not actually Mantova, but it is taken nearby.  This is the stunning Lake Maggiore, about 30 minutes from Mantova, where I’m sure they also eat plenty of Torta Sbrisolona.

By Lisa Watson

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Torta Sbrisolona

A Fabulous way to finish a meal along-side a glass of sweet dessert wine, or as a treat with a cup of tea for afternoon tea! Torta Sbrisolona comes from the beautiful town of Mantova in Italy.

Course cake, Dessert, sweet

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes minutes

Total Time 45 minutes minutes

Servings 1 to 2 cakes

Ingredients

• 200 g Butter 3/4 cup (or 100 g butter and 100g lard) - at room temperature
• 150 g Sugar 3/4 cup
• 250 g White flour 1 2/3 cup
• 200 g Cornmeal 1 1/3 cup -that's fine meal used to make polenta....NOT cornstarch/cornflour
• Lemon zest from 1 lemon
• 2 Egg yolks
• 50 g Non-peeled almonds 1/3 cup
• 150 g Peeled almonds 1 cup
• 1 sachet Vanilla sugar or add 1 tsp of vanilla essence

Instructions

• Just a note about the cornmeal before starting the recipe.  I used extremely finely ground cornmeal to make it (which I so far haven't seen outside of Italy), but I'm sure it would turn out well with more coarsely ground cornmeal that is used for making polenta.  Just try to find the finest you can.
• Heat the oven to 180 degrees C (350F).
• Chop both lots of almonds into coarse chunks.  Leave a few unpeeled ones whole to scatter on the top at the end.
• Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix them carefully until they are just combined. DO NOT OVER-MIX.
• Sprinkle the mixture, as shown in the photo above, into a greased tart pan that is at least 25cm in diameter. I used a cake-tin with removable sides, and for the extra dough, a pie dish.
• Pat it down just slightly and VERY GENTLY.  DO NOT press down hard.  It should be a quite loose mixture and not pressed together.
• Sprinkle the whole almonds over the top.
• Sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar over the top. I used brown cassonade sugar, but white sugar is fine.
• Bake for 35 - 40 minutes, or until golden brown.
• Leave in the pan to cool and then carefully extract it from the pan.

Notes

To eat torta sbrisolona, break it into pieces.