Dove and Pine: your Easter with our traditional sweets

Every celebration brings with it a lot of sweetness at the table, and so does Easter with the traditional Colomba, known throughout Italy and the world. But there are numerous other sweets in the various regions of the Boot, such as the Pigna Easter sweet. We at Spaghetti e Mandolino are pleased to present these two products of culinary tradition, made by an award-winning bakery of excellence in Molise, the panificio Rosa Maria Vittoria.

In Cercepiccola, the water is pure spring water from the Apennines of Molise, the air is clean, the small village is isolated from all the larger urban centers, and green is the predominant color. It is here that this bakery rises, which uses ancient ingredients, mountain potatoes, ancient whole grains, only locally grown stone-milled flours of coarser texture. We are talking about a bakery that won third prize for the best bread in Italy at the Premio Roma 2016 in the category Traditional and Historical Durum Wheat Breads.

The Colomba is a pastry product with two origins: one is Lombard, the other is Sicilian. These are completely different sweets: one is the Easter dove invented in the 1930s by Motta and then became the commercially most widespread; the other, of older tradition, is the Easter dove found in Sicily and also called it palummeddi or pastifuorti. The latter is a “pastaforte” sweet shaped like a dove, rooster, or simply rhombus on which designs or perforations are carved, and often includes a boiled egg as decoration and a symbol linked to Easter. The Colomba we offer is the leavened variety, similar to the Lombard version: made with type 00 flour, fresh eggs, butter, raisins, vanillin, candied fruit produced artisanally with peels of Italian oranges and lemons, sugar, salt, and above all natural yeast. It goes without saying that the difference from an industrial product is immense, and you will notice it immediately from how soft the dough is and how tender the candied fruits are.

The Pigna Molisana, also known as Easter Bread, Piccelat, Mpigna, Sweet Pizza, or Turmente, is a leavened sweet traditionally prepared during the Easter period in the Molise region and beyond: originally, in fact, the Pigna was a Ciociara recipe, but it spread both in Campania and in Molise, as well as in Abruzzo. It is truly a special sweet: to look at it, it resembles a ring cake or a panettone, but it all depends on the shape that one decides to give it. Tradition dictates that the Pigna is prepared with natural yeast: already during the Kingdom of Naples, the tough dough was worked by the hands of several women who took turns throughout the entire processing. From the beginning of the processing to the finished product, it took almost 4 days. At that time, this sweet was called Turmente for this very reason: being subject to natural leavening, everything depended on the weather, temperature, humidity, and it was always of uncertain success, making it a real torment for the peasant women trying to make it, and very often they did not succeed. But when they succeeded: it was a true satisfaction! The Pigna has a recipe that is truly of peasant tradition, handed down orally from generation to generation. The dough had and still has as its base the bread and once was enriched with potatoes as well. In the past, herbs-based liqueurs, anise seeds, or sambuca were used as flavorings. Most of the time, lemon zest was used, resulting in a milder flavor.

Today, instead of using sourdough, powder yeast is used, which has caused a loss of flavor and purity that the sweet once had. The Panificio Rosa Maria Vittoria, however, uses sourdough just like in the old days with a slow leavening that lasts from 30 to 48 hours. A true rarity!

Made with type 00 flour, fresh eggs, sugar, natural and brewer’s yeast, lard, extra virgin olive oil, honey, zest of Italian lemons, vanillin, salt. Usually, the classic version of the pigna requires a glaze to be poured over once the product is finished. The artisanal pigna from Panificio Rosa Maria Vittoria, however, is a purer version, where the soft and naturally leavened dough can be better savored. With this variant, it is possible to pair the pigna with savory: it is indeed exceptional with a nice slice of mortadella!


Happy Easter to everyone!
 

S&M