SICILIAN SWEETS

The Sicilian buccellato

This recipe is by Mom Paola (nonna Paola), a wonderful woman, who has always used her art in the kitchen.
The Buccellato is a dessert typical of Sicilian tradition, very popular across the island and Enna and eaten mostly in winter and especially during the Christmas holidays!

Ingredients for the pastry
4 cups of flour 00
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of lard
3 eggs
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of honey
0.280 oz. of ammonia
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Preparation
Put the flour in a bowl, add all the other ingredients and mix everything,wrap with a plastic wrap and let rest for about an hour.

Ingredients for the filling
4 cups of dried figs, chopped into small pieces
¾ cup of fig jam (or apricot or strawberry …she usually makes it by herself)
1 cup of chopped almonds
1 cup of chopped hazelnuts
½ cup of chopped walnuts
½ cup of chopped pistachios
a glass of wine or marsala wine
1 cup of chopped citron
1 cup of pumpkin cut into small pieces
1 cup of chopped orange peel
1 cup of chopped dark chocolate
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 grated lemon
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon of ground cloves

Executions
Place all the ingredients, except the chocolate, in a saucepan. Put it on a low flame and mix all the ingredients for a while, about 5 minutes, turn and, when cool, add the chocolate.
Take the pastry, roll it out with a rolling pin and make a rectangle measuring 15 cm x 30 cm.
Put the filling and close the center with your hands, slowly turning to be able to close a circle (like a donut), using the special tweezers prick all around and brush with egg yolk and place in the oven for 30 minutes.

Collorelle or Cuddureddi

Today the “collorelle” are not strewn with poppy-seeds, maybe to remove any connection to Ceres, to whom the poppy red flower was dedicated.

The “collorelle” are a very simple mixture of flour and water, even lacking leaven, in memory and imitation of the unleavened bread mentioned in the Gospels.

Prepared by the “massari” (farmers), in charge of the sanctuary, briskly co-operated with the women of their families and the faithful, who for the devotional tradition make thousands of them (sometimes as much as 600 kilograms ) the days before the festival.

Those who  receive one keep it as a “sacred thing”.

During the celebrations of our Lord of Papardura, traditionally under the arches, opposite the church, the procurators give the faithful upon free reward, the printed image of the Saint, a little “Cuddura” that is a little piece of bread which is made of a cylindrical tangle of half a centimetre in which the shape of a Greek delta resembling  mystical objects (the sacred Millo)  […].

Ingredients:

1kg wheat flour water 

Preparation:

Knead flour and water make some cylindrical strings half a centimetre  thick    twine them to an 8, bake in oven for 20 minutes

Recipe dictated by Mrs Gaetana Andolina, one of the women who makes the”cuddureddi”during the feast of the Holy Crucifix of Papardura.

Ingredienti: 

Un chilu di farina e acqua

Priparazioni:

'Mpasta a farina ccû l’acqua , fa tanti curdiceddi di minzu centimetru’ ncudduriali a forma di uttu, ‘nfurnali pi vinti minuti.”

File audio.mp3 made whith Audacity

Cannateddi di Pasqua

Noted amongst the Sicilians as a traditional Easter food, cannateddi consists of a sweet dough wrapped around one or more hard-boiled eggs. Legend has it that the bigger the bread and the more eggs it holds - the more important and loved is its recipient!

                                                         

Ingredients for the dough:

2ozs.  shortening
¼ cup plus 2 tbsps. sugar
1 egg
½ cup milk
1 ¾ cup plus 2 tbsps. flour
a pinch of ammonia
1 tsp. salt
6 hard boiled eggs 
Confectioner's Sugar

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, cream the shortening and sugar until it becomes light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs and the milk. Continue mixing until it is well blended.
Sift the flour, the ammonia and the salt over the dough until it appears smooth, then shape it on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Insert the hard boiled eggs into the dough. Drizzle with a glaze made of water, sugar and cinnamon and bake in a preheated 200° oven for about 20 minutes. Cool on a rack.