Canestrelli from Torriglia

Characteristics 

Canestrelli are daisy-shaped cookies. They’re normally 3 ½ inches, but can be different sizes as well. They are often coverd with powderd sugar. They are crumbly, buttery, and so soft that they literally melt in your mouth.

Canestrelli are famous throughout all of Italy but they are traditionally from a little town close to Genova named Terraglia. I’ve often seen them packed in boxes in many stores, but at Terraglia you can find them fresh at the pastry shops.

Name

The name means “basket.” We don’t know if it’s referring to the shape of the canestrelli or to the container that was used to let them cool.

History

Tradition has it that these cookies were so valuable that they were used like money to buy several different things. A record from 1576 says that someone once stole a big basket of canestrelli from a man, because they were precious. They were made of flour, which at that time was very hard to find and was a very valuable source. This cookie is in fact represented on the “GENOVINO,” an old coin used in the Genova area. Isn’t it odd that a cookie was illustrated on a coin?

Canestrelli were first sold in church backyards. The first people that sold them in a store were Maria Avanzino and her husband Giuseppe Dandero, owners of the first coffee shop in Torriglia. Torriglia is the birthplace of the canestrello and in this town it is actually called ”canestrelletto.”

Here, these cookies are so important that at the beginning of June they celebrate by holding the “Canestrelletto Festival.”

A little more about the place

The place where they are from–Torriglia–is in Liguria, in the northwest of Italy. 

LIGURIA is famous for the wonderful five fishing villages called Cinque Terre, Genova, Portofino, San Remo, the wonderful beaches and mountains, and pesto.

Torriglia is a smaller, less-known town but it is beautiful and a lot of people from Genova go there on vacation.

The Natural Regional Park of Antola is one of the most touristic places of that area.

Canestrelli

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Equipment

• flower cookie cutter

Ingredients

  

• 8 cups all purpose flour 1 kg
• 5 ½ butter sticks 600 kg
• 1½ cups +2 tablespoons sugar 300 g
• 6 egg yollks
• half lemon zest or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Instructions

 

• Cut the butter into pieces.
  
• Add the flour and mix it together with your hands.
  
• Add the egg yolks and the sugar.

  You can add a half peel of lemon or a ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract for more flavor.
  
• Mix everything together until it becomes a dough.

  Let the dough rest in the fridge for a half hour to one hour.
  
• Preheat the oven to 335 ℉.
• You need a flower cookie cutter if you want the right shape.
  
• Grab a piece of dough and roll it out to ⅓ inch thick. Use the flower cookie cutter and a small rounded shape to make the hole in the middle and put them on a baking sheet.
  
• Bake them for 10 minutes. The color should remain light. They shouldn’t get a golden color because when you take them out of the oven they’ll continue baking for a few more minutes.
  
• Let the cookies cool and, with the help of a strainer, add powdered sugar.
  
• Enjoy!l

Notes

You can store these cookies for a couple of weeks in a closed container.