Colorful carnival cookies are butter shortbread flavored with orange and lemon zest, decorated with vibrant strawberry glaze on top. That’s why they are so festive and overwhelming, perfect for Mardi Gras or any day you want to lift your spirits with something good and fun. The shortcrust pastry recipe is traditional, but I chose excellent raw materials to make it a masterpiece: organic spelt flour from Viterbo, fresh organic eggs, and artisan butter, which I flavored with orange and lemon zest the day before kneading. This step, which may seem unnecessary, is crucial because it allows the butter to capture all the aroma of the peels, rich in essential oils. The cookies will be very fragrant even after baking.
I needed a truly captivating cookie to participate in an unconventional culinary challenge. Indeed, the Italian Food Blogger Association is participating in the 2024 edition of the Foiano Carnival in Chiana, in the province of Arezzo. Thirty members wanting to play will compete once more, and we’re not just talking about recipes – those are necessary because there is no carnival without delicious sweets – but also funny stories.
The king of the Foiano Carnival is called Giocondo, and every year he bids farewell to the carnival with his funeral, when he is burned in the Upper Square of Foiano, taking with him the good and bad events of the past year. I thought of a different ending for him than usual, and these cookies are part of the story
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 2 Hours
- Portions: 8
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Carnival
Ingredients
For the shortcrust pastry, I used organic einkorn spelt flour from the Azienda Agricola la Turchina, in Viterbo. Spelt is an ancient grain ideal for making cookies and pies. It is a healthy, whole-grain flour rich in nutrients beneficial to health. Also, since we will add the glaze later, I halved the amount of sugar in this dough.
The number of cookies you will get depends on the shapes you choose: I used a cookie cutter in the shape of fruit of different sizes, and I made about thirty.
- 7 oz butter (artisan or good quality)
- 1 lemon and 1 orange (untreated – only the grated zest)
- 10.5 oz einkorn spelt flour (organic)
- 1/4 cup sugar, including cane sugar
- 7 oz butter (citrus-flavored)
- 2 egg yolks (organic)
- 2 egg whites (organic)
- 12 oz powdered sugar (or more if needed)
- 1/3 oz food coloring (natural and assorted colors)
- 3 drops strawberry essence (optional)
For these cookies, various tools will be helpful for decorating with icing: a black food marker and a decorating pen or, better yet, two.
- 1 cake decorating pen
- 1 food marker
Let’s Get Cooking
Remember to flavor the butter in advance, at least twelve hours before using it.
Let the butter soften in a bowl out of the refrigerator: if it is of good quality, it will be rich in fat and will quickly become soft. Then, after washing and drying them, finely grate the zest of an orange and a lemon directly into the bowl. Mix with a fork, making sure the mixture becomes homogeneous. Cover with cling film or, better, with bee wrap, and store in the fridge for the prescribed time.
However, the steps are identical even if you decide to knead by hand.
Combine sugar and flour in the bowl of the stand mixer, fitting the paddle attachment. Activate and add the cold butter in small pieces: ours will be wonderfully citrus-scented!
Knead quickly until you get a crumbly consistency, then add the egg yolks one at a time, taking care to save the whites that we will need for the icing.
Turn off the mixer just as the dough becomes a mass. Then roll out the shortcrust pastry on a mat or between two sheets of parchment paper, not too thin but not too thick: about three-quarters of an inch will be fine and, after resting in the fridge for at least thirty minutes, it will allow us to finish rolling it out and cut it with precision.
After resting in the fridge, the shortcrust pastry will be ready to work. Roll it out with a floured rolling pin to a thickness of about one-fifth of an inch or slightly more. Carnival cookies cannot be too thin as they need to withstand the handling required to decorate them without breaking.
Then flour the cookie cutters you have chosen and cut quickly, pressing the cutter into the dough with a bit of force and precision. The cookie will come off easily. Place it directly on the baking sheet, where we will have laid the silicone mat that replaces parchment paper.
Continue like this until you finish the dough. Preheat the static oven to 338°F. While the oven heats up, keep the cookies in the fridge: the thermal shock indeed favors both the crispness and the shape retention.
Finally, bake for ten to twelve minutes and wait for the cookies to cool completely before decorating them.
Preparing the icing is very simple. Just mix powdered sugar and egg white until you get the right consistency: the mixture must be fluid but not too much. To avoid mistakes, add the ingredients little by little and adjust if necessary after trying. The icing dries upon contact with air, so you may need to add a teaspoon of egg white along the way. After dividing the white icing into many bowls, add the different colors and mix carefully. The color takes a few minutes to dissolve completely, then we can start decorating, armed mainly with imagination.
If you have any doubts, you can find all the explanations further on, in the Queen’s Secrets.
The colorful carnival cookies are the recipe I chose to tell in the kitchen the story of the king of Carnival of Foiano della Chiana, the oldest in Italy. Along with me, many other food bloggers from AIFB will compete to help King Giocondo. The first traces of the Foiano Carnival date back to 1536, and since then, this historical event has transformed and modernized without losing its identity. Today, there are four workshops constructing allegorical floats and their characters throughout the year: they are Bombolo, Nottambuli, Azzurro, and Rustici. The carnival artists work with glue, colors, and complicated mechanisms so that their float is the most stunning of the year. What never changes is King Giocondo, a scarecrow of rags and straw with a crown and a medal. Giocondo reigns for a year and then ends up burned, on the last night of the carnival, taking with him the year that is leaving. He then rises again, charred and begins his reign anew, already knowing he will soon meet the same fate. Shall we change this ending? The workshops inspired me to decide to prepare lots of colorful cookies that kept me busy for a long time with brushes and colors. The cookies have a fantasy story in which even Giocondo, finally, finds his redemption:
King Giocondo was a cheerful lad. He had to be, he was the king of carnival. Deep down, however, he hid two troubles that seemed never to resolve. The first was being burned every year: it was a challenge to reorganize each time and stay true to oneself! The second was a terribly unhappy love…
If I have piqued your curiosity, and you want to know how it will end, read:
The Queen’s Secrets
Now, I’ll explain in detail all the secrets you need to obtain beautiful and truly good cookies.
Citrus-flavored butter is the secret of these cookies, as the fat captures aromas and scents remarkably, making butter, cream, milk, and oil our best allies when we want to impart a delicate, persistent, and unmistakable aroma to a preparation.
Always remember that cookies should be cut when the shortcrust pastry is cold. You can re-knead several times, but remember that to achieve a precise cut, the shortcrust pastry must be cold and the cookie cutters floured. It will be necessary to repeat the rest in the fridge if needed.
Icing is the fun part, the one that unleashes creativity and allows you to choose designs and colors as if you were in a Foiano Carnival workshop. To obtain flavored icing, use a few drops of lemon or orange juice or natural essence. Keep in mind that citrus fruits color, and white icing will no longer be pristine; essences do not, but they must be of good quality, or they will ruin it, and they should be used sparingly. I used a few drops of strawberry essence.
With the edible marker, you will be able to draw outlines and details; for everything else, use the decorating pens loaded with colored icing and the brush.
With the edible marker, you will be able to draw outlines and details; for everything else, use the decorating pens loaded with colored icing and the brush.
With the edible marker, you will be able to draw outlines and details; for everything else, use the decorating pens loaded with colored icing and the brush.
With the edible marker, you will be able to draw outlines and details; for everything else, use the decorating pens loaded with colored icing and the brush.
