Canestrelli

Flower-shaped shortbread made short with potato starch and yolks only.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter).

Ingredients

• 200 g plain flour
• 100 g potato starch
• 150 g cold butter, diced
• 100 g icing sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• icing sugar, to dust

Method

1. A THIRD OF THE FLOUR IS POTATO STARCH, and that is what makes these collapse on the tongue. Starch has no gluten to develop, so the more of it the shorter the biscuit — all wheat flour gives a perfectly good biscuit that is not this one.
2. YOLKS ONLY, no whites. Whites add water and set firm, which is the opposite of what is wanted.
3. Rub the cold butter into the flour, starch, icing sugar, salt and zest until it looks like crumbs, then bring it together with the yolks and STOP.
4. Chill it an hour. It is a difficult dough that cracks as you roll it; patch it rather than kneading it back together.
5. Roll to 1 cm — thicker than most biscuits — and cut flowers with a fluted cutter, then stamp a hole out of the centre of each.
6. Chill the cut shapes 20 minutes so they hold their edges.
7. Bake at 160C for 15 minutes. THEY MUST NOT COLOUR: pale, sandy and barely set is right, and a tan canestrello has gone too far. Dust thickly with icing sugar once cold.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes