The recipe of CRESCIONDA Spoletina

CRESCIONDA SPOLETINA

☺ by Silvia Matricardi


Crescionda is a typical cake Spoleto people make during the Carnival. Anyway, you can enjoy it in almost every restaurant in Spoleto all year long; sometimes with weird decorations.... Everybody makes his/her version of Crescionda: this is my family's, since ages....

Ingredients:

4 eggs (whole)
1/2 l of semi-skimmed milk
2 spoonful of Mistrà or Sambuca liqueur
7 spoonful of sugar
250 gr of Amaretti (macaroon) biscuits
2 spoonful of flour
2 spoonful of breadcrumbs
cocoa powder (3 or 4 spoonful, depending on personal taste)
a pinch of salt
the grated peeling of one lemon and of one orange
extra virgin olive oil


Crumble the Amaretti biscuits with a grater and put them in a bowl. Add the flour, the grated bread, the salt and the cocoa powder. Mix them well with a spoon.
In a bigger bowl put the whole eggs, add the sugar and beat them. The add the milk slowly and keep beating; add the liqueur; grate the orange and the lemon pealing and add them to the mixture of eggs and milk.
At this point you have to pour the contents of the first bowl (the powdery ingredients) into the big bowl; you have to do it very slowly, while keeping beating the liquids, so to avoid to form lumps.
Once the mixture is well amalgamated, take a baking tin and oil it with the extra virgin olive oil. Pour the mixture into the baking tin, warm up the stove and put the tin inside. Cook at middle temperature (about 200° C) for about 15-20 minutes. While cooking the elements in the mixture will form 2 different layers: one more milky, the other one less creamy, in a different colour; it is normal and it must be so.
When the Crescionda is done you will see it: first you will feel the smell, then you will notice that when you take it our of the stove if you touch the surface the cake will “move” (it must be “springy”) beneath, indicating that what is under the surface is still quite liquid. Do not cook it anymore: it will become more solid when it cools down and in any case our Crescionda must be eaten with a tea spoon.
Let it cool down and then move it on a plate.



You can eat it alone or with a ball of vanilla icecream... with a good sweet wine....

Enjoy!