Stages of a journey and the start of the New Year at Biscuit Factory

Tappe means stages in English, Tapponi means big stages in English, in other words, our way of measuring the dough. After the winter holidays and the days of closure that we always allow ourselves at the beginning of the new year - the Mattei biscuit factory shop in Prato always remains closed from the afternoon of the 31st to January 4th - we restart. 

Here, we are briefly going to tell you what happens in our historic biscuit factory at Via Ricasoli 20/22 and the characteristic name always used to measure the dough for Mantovana Cakes and Prato Biscuits. At 10 am on 4th January, Mauro, Marco, Maurino, Claudio came back to the biscuit factory a day earlier than the rest of us to prepare the yeast and turn the ovens back on... to arrange and prepare things for the next day. From the morning of January 5th, from 5:30/6:00, we are operational again: eggs stacked in pallets ready to be cracked, butter, sugar, flour, the smell of orange, baking powder, and almond granules for the topping; these are the ingredients for the Mantovana Cakes. If around 8 am we peek into the production area, on the far right where the mixers are positioned, we can follow their preparation. The process is as follows: first, sugar is amalgamated and whipped together with butter, yeast, and the scent of orange, then the egg is added slowly, finally the flour, which is worked for a short time.

This is how the Mantovana dough has always been called; I don't know where this saying originates from (it is still unknown to me), I only know that it has always been said like this in the Antonio Mattei biscuit factory: a 'tappa' of Mantovana Cakes is the amount of dough that is needed for about 20 small trays.

"Tapponi" are instead the names given to the biscuit dough. But on these, perhaps, we will discuss another time. For the history and origin of the name and recipe of the Mantovana Cake, please click HERE.

Letizia Pandolfini