Ingredients for the cake-
4 eggs
1 bustina vanilla - or a pod
1 rind from a lemon
300gr sugar
100ml sunflower oil
150ml milk
100ml vermouth white
100gr cornflour
400gr 00 flour
16gr raising agent for sweets
Ingredients for the icing -
250gr icing sugar
1 egg white
(add droplets very slowly of water to thin out if its too thick)
WATCH INSTAGRAM REEL FOR METHOD
Buona Pasqua a tutti!
Doing Pasqua like my maternal side this year with these Cuzzupe Calabresi - delicious Easter brioche. My 97 year old Calabrese Nonna gave them the thumbs up.
2 eggs
650gr flour (I used half 00 and half Manitoba)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup milk
75ml sunflower oil
1 teaspoon dry yeast
Rind of a lemon
Method - head to instagram to watch also https://www.instagram.com/the_little_italian_school/
The dough should be kind of sticky so if yours looks dry add a touch of extra milk. Use flour to work the ball before you let rise the first time (overnight if you like or do it early in the morning and let rise for about 6 hours. Once shaped let them rise for another couple of hours).
Shape them and decorate them with the hard boiled egg and the cross like the traditional ones in the above pic , otherwise shape them into a twist and pop some choc drops in them like the last one like the pic below (just don’t dare call them Cuzzupe afterwards or the internet police will attack)
Oven on 180c until they are dark brown.
Enjoy dunked in some ‘latte e caffe`’ !
Sweet Brioche (Cuzzupe recipe) with Choc Chips
Ingredients -
500gr spaghetti or linguine
2 cloves garlic (whole to remove or crushed - whichever you prefer)
1/4 (or a splash more) cup extra virgin olive oil
1kg clams
approx 400gr ripe cherry tomatoes (or any tomato you have - or none at all if you prefer in bianco)
Salt
Pasta water in case it needs to be added at the end
Watch the instagram reel as a method guide. https://www.instagram.com/p/CcY_45ylU4M/
When the pasta is cooked, grab it with the tongs and move it to the pan with the sauce, without draining it too much so some of the pasta water goes in the pan with it creating a nice sauce.
Italian Procession - Riccia, Molise
Easter in Italy is a huge celebration, and like many Italian events it is a deep rooted religious one. Like all of Italy’s traditional celebrations, ‘Pasqua’ (Easter) time comes with some delicious traditional foods that are made throughout the country’s twenty beautiful regions. The most well known are, ‘La Pastiera Napoletana’, which is an Easter pie made in Naples, and ‘La Colomba di Pasqua’ which is a sweet dry cake similar to the Christmas Panettone only shaped like a dove, representing the symbol of new life. In Molise and Abbruzzo we make sweet and savoury ‘Fiadoni’. Here is a blog I wrote last Easter with the recipe: click here
Here are some typical Italian sayings that either refer to Easter or are taken from an event that happened during the Easter period but can be used all year round.
This means, ‘Christmas with your family, easter with whoever you like!’. While Easter Sunday is usually spent with family, Pasquetta (Easter Monday) is always spent with friends and usually by having a picnic.
A long as Lent - With the lent period lasting 40 days, this saying speaks for itself! It’s used to describe someone or something that is boring or drawn out
Happy as Easter. (Happy as Larry) - With Easter in Italy being a very religious celebration because of Christ rising on Easter Sunday, you can imagine the immense joyful energy in the air. New life brings a lot of happiness!
'To carry one’s own cross’. The saying refers to the pain and suffering by Jesus Christ as he carried his own cross, so it used to express when someone is going through a hard time.
One of the Apostles named Thomas said he didn’t believe Jesus had died and risen and said, ‘If I don't see the marks left by the nails in his hands, nor pass my fingers through his ribs, I will not believe’, so this saying is used when a person won’t believe something until they see it with their own eyes.
