'Renzo' Gift Box
Big Gift Box with Prato Biscuits, Brutti Buoni, Mantovana cake, Glace cherry Loaf and Vinsanto
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Description
The 'Renzo' gift box offers a rich 'historical' tasting of the products from Mattei Biscuit Factory.
Contains 35 oz of Mixed Biscuits (Prato Biscuits + Brutti Buoni), a Small Mantovana Cake (14 oz) and a Small Candied Cherry Loaf (17.5 oz), and a bottle of Santa Cristina Antinori Vinsanto.
Prato Biscuits are prepared with flour, sugar, free-range eggs, almonds and pine nuts, they do not contain preservatives, animal fats or vegetable fats.
The Brutti Buoni 'Ugly but Good' are biscuits based on chopped almonds, sugar, free-range egg whites.
They are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, and have always been part of the historic desserts of our biscuit factory.
The broken almonds and the egg white rest and mix for a few hours, before meeting the other ingredients (flour and sugar), become "Ugly but Good" and go in the oven.
Mantovana is a soft and fragrant butter-based cake, with fresh free-range eggs, flour and sugar, covered with almond grains. It does not contain yeast.
Just like a homemade cake, it is best enjoyed within the first days of production and in any case within the recommended dates.
The Candied Loaf is a cake made with a sheet of brioche bread topped with a thin layer of apricot jam and candied cherries; it is all rolled up and garnished with almond paste and dusted with icing sugar just before cooking.
In fact, the sugar cooks and caramelises, forming a crunchy crust which together with the chopped almonds gives a consistency which contrasts pleasantly with the soft dough and cherries. -
History
Prato Biscuits - also commonly known as almond cantucci or cantuccini - are part of the Tuscany confectionery tradition and are perfect after a meal paired with Vinsanto.
Since 1858, our biscuits have been baked daily and packaged by hand one by one, in the classic Blu Mattei bag.
The Brutti Buoni have been present in our Bottega since 1910, or there about ... thanks to the 'know-how' of the aunt Italia Ciampolini.
In fact, they were created from the need to reuse 'leftover' ingredients from other recipes: broken almonds, because in Prato biscuits we only use whole almonds, and the egg white that is a 'leftover' from the Mantovana Cake recipe, which requires more yolks than egg whites.
In 1875 two nuns from Mantua, during a pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee, were hosted by Antonio Mattei: to thank him for the hospitality, they gifted him the recipe for this cake which takes its name from their city.
Antonio Mattei made his own version of this recipe, the one still on sale in our stores, and also celebrated by Pellegrino Artusi in his famous 1891 book 'Science in the kitchen with the art of eating well'.
The recipe for the "rich" Glace Cherry Loaf was devised by Ernesto Pandolfini around the 1930s; the candied cherries assorted inside the dough were green, white and red, in honor of the Italian flag. -
SizesWidth34 cmHeight13 cmDepth33 cm
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Notes
Weight 4.5 kg with external shipping packaging.
Fresh biscuits, without preservatives, like the homemade ones; we recommend you to enjoy them within 12 days from production, the date is printed on the label.