Canestrelli, the recipe for crumbly daisy-shaped biscuits

The scallops they are delicate biscuits, delicious and crumbly, based on a very special shortcrust pastry, to be prepared not with the classic eggs, but with the yolks of hard-boiled eggs. A typical recipe from Liguria and Piedmont, but widespread throughout Italy and loved by everyone, young and old. The Piedmontese recipe differs from the Ligurian one due to the presence of hazelnut flour in the dough, while we offer you the version with only 00 flour. The canestrelli are immediately recognizable, because they come with a classic shape of a holey daisy in the center and dusted with a thin layer of icing sugar. Canestrelli are the perfect biscuits for any moment of the day: for breakfast with milk, for a snack with a cup of tea, or dipped in a cup of hot chocolate. And if you are a lover of Ligurian biscuit recipes, try also to prepare the Baci di Alassio with hazelnut and cocoa!

Ingredients for 100 cookies

  • Flour 00: 300 g
  • Butter: 300g
  • Untreated lemon: 1
  • Potato starch: 200 g
  • Powdered sugar: 150 g
  • Hard-boiled yolks: 6
  • Preparation: 30 minutes
  • Cooking: 20 minutes
  • Total: 50 minutes
  • Calories: 48 kcal/biscuit

Preparation

1

The first step in making canestrelli is preparing hard-boiled eggs. Place the eggs in a pot of cold water and put it on the stove. From when the water boils, count about 8-10 minutes for the eggs to cook. Meanwhile, sift the flour, starch and icing sugar into a bowl.

2

With a fine-hole grater, grate the peel of an untreated lemon and add it to the flour. Cut a vanilla bean, remove the seeds with a small knife and add them to the mixture. Finally add the cold butter, cut into small pieces.

3

When the eggs are hard-boiled, peel them and keep only the yolk. Reuse the egg whites for another preparation.

4

Pour the egg yolks into a bowl and mash them with a fork. Add them to the rest of the ingredients and start kneading by hand, working the mixture until you get a firm, smooth and compact dough.

5

Slightly flatten the dough, wrap it in a sheet of transparent film and place it in the refrigerator to let it rest for about 30 minutes.

6

After the resting time, take the dough out of the fridge and place it on a lightly floured surface, or on a sheet of parchment paper. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough until you obtain a sheet of 1 cm thickness. With a flower-shaped mold, cut out the biscuits, kneading the scraps again to obtain more.

7

Arrange the biscuits obtained in a pan lined with baking paper. With the help of the handle of a wooden spoon, make a small hole in the center of each biscuit, being careful not to break the shortcrust pastry.

8

Turn on the oven in static mode at 180°C. As soon as it reaches temperature, put the biscuits in the oven and let them cook for about 15-18 minutes, checking that they do not darken too much. Once cooked, take them out of the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. When they are cold, sprinkle them with icing sugar.

Advice and tips

For the delicacy of this dough we advise you to work it by handor at most with the use of the planetary mixer equipped with a hook, to be activated at minimum speed.

If you don’t have potato starch you can replace it with corn starch. For the other ingredients, being a traditional and regional recipe, there is no way to make substitutions without compromising the final result. However, you can fill the canestrelli with custard or chocolate ganache, to serve them as small pastries.

The rest in the refrigerator can be prolonged even more than 30 minutes. You can therefore prepare the dough in advance and then leave it to rest in the refrigerator for a few hours. The main thing is not to leave it at room temperature.

We advise you to carefully follow the doses and the procedure of this recipe. Canestrelli, if made with the wrong dough, can be too crumbly after cooking and turn into floury crumbs.

You can reuse hard-boiled egg whites by adding them to vegetable salads, or by filling them with a mixture of tuna and mayonnaise and serving them as an appetizer.

storage

Once cold, the canestrelli can be stored up to 2 weeksclosed in a tin box or inside hermetically sealed containers.

You can freeze the raw dough and let it thaw in the refrigerator the day before cooking the canestrelli.

History

The origin of the canestrelli recipe is lost in history, but probably dates back to medieval times. In fact, the Ligurian tradition tells that the canestrelli were prepared and distributed to pilgrims, especially those visiting at the abbey of San Lorenzo in Genoa. The recipe, initially very simple and based only on flour, egg yolks, butter and lemon, was enriched over time until it reached the current version. The canestrelli are now one of the symbols of Ligurian pastry and have been included in the list of Traditional Italian Agri-Food Products (PAT).

Ingredients for 100 cookies

  • Flour 00: 300 g
  • Butter: 300g
  • Untreated lemon: 1
  • Potato starch: 200 g
  • Powdered sugar: 150 g
  • Hard-boiled yolks: 6
  • Preparation: 30 minutes
  • Cooking: 20 minutes
  • Total: 50 minutes
  • Calories: 48 kcal/biscuit
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Philip Owell

Professional blogger, here to bring you new and interesting content every time you visit our blog.