This fall we led a private group cycling tour through the Amarone and Valpolicellla wine areas, south through lovely Borghetto sul Mincio, ending the week in magnificent Mantova, one of the most picturesque cities in Italy. We enjoyed a week of unparalleled wines paired with amazing foods. Many of our meals ended with a dessert wine, paired with a local sweet biscuit or cookie. The unique regional dolce (sweet) that followed us all week is Sbrisolona.

The tongue-twisting name comes from the Italian verb sbriciolarsi, which means ‘to crumble’ or ‘to fall into pieces’.  It is front and center in the bakery window in Mantova, its home, but spread throughout the whole province of Verona thanks to its perfect match with the dessert wine Recioto. Farmers in the surrounding countryside made a hard and crumbly dessert from items they had on hand – crushed grains such as millet and cornmeal, nuts they could forage, and lard. Cooks for the wealthy ruling Gonzaga family of Mantova enriched the recipe with additions of expensive, hard to obtain ingredients like almonds, butter, sugar and spices. Today these luxury items, no longer so exclusive, are the standard.

We had the great fortune to learn how to make this treat from two Italian chefs on our visit, during our stay at Allegrini’s luxurious Villa della Torre. The recipe could not have been easier, just mix the ingredients and bake. It is cooked an a cake pan, but the end result is more of a cookie than a cake – instead of cutting it, you break it into pieces and enjoy with a glass of Recioto della Valpolicella. Which we did!

A bit of background on Recioto. The name ‘recioto’ comes from ‘recie’, ‘ears’ in the local dialect. The ‘ears’ of the grape bunch are those lobes on the top, which receive the most sunlight, and are therefore riper and drier with more concentrated sugars. These are separated from the remainder of the bunch, and are used to produce this sweet dessert wine. Today, this process is a bit more efficient, as the entire bunch is picked and the grapes are air dried in a room to concentrate the sugars. This technique (passito) produces a raisin that is then fermented to produce a sweet wine. Fermentation of wine is the process of converting sugar to alcohol. In Recioto wines, the fermentation process is stopped, typically by chilling the wine, before all the sugar is consumed, resulting in a sweet wine.

Legend has it that, in the early 1900s, a local producer forgot about a barrel of Recioto fermenting away in his cellar. When it was eventually discovered, the fermentation process had totally consumed the sugars, resulting in a dry wine. Tasting the wine that was expected to be sweet, and instead finding a bone dry, high alcohol, full-bodied wine, the taster exclaimed “Amaro!” (bitter), and Amarone wine was born.

Sbrisolona

11 ounces all-purpose flour
3.5 ounces coarse yellow cornmeal
9 ounces butter
5.5 ounces sugar
9 ounces almonds (shelled but with their skin) coarsely chopped
10 whole almonds for decoration
1 egg
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 325° F. Smear the bottom and sides of a 9” cake pan with butter, dust with 1 tablespoon of the flour and set aside.

Mix the flour, yellow cornmeal, chopped almonds and salt in a bowl.

Melt the butter. Whisk the sugar with the egg and melted butter in a separate bowl, then transfer to the bowl with the almond mixture. Mix all ingredients slowly by hand until homogeneous.

Put the mixture into the cake pan in handfuls, rubbing it between your palms to make its characteristic uneven surface. Add some whole almonds on top of it and put the cake into the oven. Bake it for about 40 minutes.

Sbrisolona is not cut with a knife but simply broken into pieces by hitting it with your fist. It is ideally matched with Recioto, but you can also serve it with a generous sprinkle of Grappa.