Dear friends, Easter is approaching, and I couldn’t resist sharing one of the traditional Easter recipes from my beloved land: cuddure cull’ova, or Easter sweets with eggs! In the past, during Lent, a period of dietary moderation was observed, ending with Holy Week. Eggs were the quintessential symbol of this rebirth, so much so that these sweets, made with incorporated boiled eggs, were gifted by young girls to their fiancés on Resurrection Day. Their traditional shape is circular, but as you will see, they can also be made in other forms. The aroma can only be imagined, but the taste is truly authentic! A special and deserved thank you goes first of all to my husband’s dear grandmother, Grandma Agata, who gifted us her ancient recipe and her precious advice, but, as with every traditional sweet, I thank every family member who over the years has always gathered specifically to make these wonderful sweets baked directly in a stone oven. The quantities can be doubled since they are mostly prepared during Easter holidays to delight relatives and friends. Try making them because they are fun to prepare all together even with your children, but above all, because they are delicious cookies!
Also try these other Easter ideas:
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Economical
- Rest time: 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 6 medium-sized cuddure
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring
Ingredients for the dough:
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup butter (or lard)
- 2 eggs
- 1 lemon zest (untreated)
- 1 packet baking powder
- as needed milk (about 3 tbsp)
- 1 pinch salt
- 4 cups All-purpose flour
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1 cup Butter (or lard)
- 2 Eggs
- 1 Lemon zest (untreated)
- 1 packet Baking powder
- as needed Milk (only if necessary)
- as needed colored sprinkles
- as needed milk
- 6 eggs
- 1 egg white
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- Few drops lemon juice
Tools
- 1 Saucepan
- 1 Rolling pin
- 1 Wooden spoon
- Molds
- 1 Baking sheet
- 1 Plastic wrap
- 1 Brush
- 1 Dough scraper
Preparation
Start by boiling the eggs in a saucepan filled with water for 9-10′ from the point of boiling, and once hard-boiled, set them aside.
Next, prepare the dough by placing the flour with sugar and the sifted packet of baking powder on a work surface, creating the classic fountain shape. Then add the eggs in the center and a pinch of salt. In our family, we obviously tripled the ingredients.
Beat with a fork as you would for an omelet.
Add the soft butter in pieces and the grated lemon zest or vanilla extract, as I did, if you don’t have an organic citrus fruit available.
Start kneading with a dough scraper or a stand mixer if you prefer.
Add a little milk at a time only as necessary. 3 tbsp were enough for me.
What is important is that the ingredients are well blended and that a soft, smooth, and homogeneous dough is obtained.
Once a homogeneous dough is obtained, wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least half an hour. Then start cutting this dough into many smaller pieces, which you will roll out with a rolling pin on a well-floured surface to a thickness of 1/16-1/8 inch.
Shape your cuddure by cutting them with a scalloped wheel according to the shapes you like (baskets, hearts, bows, doves, etc.) using cardboard cutouts or molds. For example, we also chose to braid them.
In this case, just create three strips by rolling and lengthening them gradually with your hands, then join them as a braid.
And finally, close them into a circle.
Place the cuddure on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and position them well spaced. Place 1 or 2 boiled eggs on each one, brushing the base with a bit of milk and pressing lightly on the dough to make them adhere better.
Then decorate the eggs with other dough cut with a 1 cm wide strip wheel, which you will brush lightly with milk to make the sprinkles adhere.
Bake in a preheated oven at 356°F for about 15′ if you want them softer, or 18′-20′ if you prefer a crunchier cookie. They should still appear golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before storing or enjoying.
And there you go…the cuddure cull’ova are ready to be enjoyed!
Bon Appétit from La Cucina di Fefe!
Storage
👉 Once cooled, you can store the cuddure cull’ova for 6-7 days under a glass dome or inside closed containers or cellophane bags until ready to serve or gift them. Grandma Agata, however, used to prepare them on Holy Thursday and store them in a cool, dry place well covered with a clean cloth until Easter Sunday. After 7 days, they become dry cookies perfect for dipping in milk. Additionally, the eggs, being cooked twice, will keep well even at room temperature without spoiling.
👉 Once cooled, you can store the cuddure cull’ova for 6-7 days under a glass dome or inside closed containers or cellophane bags until ready to serve or gift them. Grandma Agata, however, used to prepare them on Holy Thursday and store them in a cool, dry place well covered with a clean cloth until Easter Sunday. After 7 days, they become dry cookies perfect for dipping in milk. Additionally, the eggs, being cooked twice, will keep well even at room temperature without spoiling.
Advice, notes, variations, and suggestions
🟣 *If you want to make cuddure with glaze, you should bake them without brushing them with milk and prepare the glaze by whipping the egg white and slowly adding one spoon at a time the sugar, a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice, always beating; the mixture should be very thick and come off the spoon cleanly. Once the cuddure are baked and slightly cooled, on the same baking sheet where you cooked them, cover them with the prepared glaze and sprinkle with colorful sprinkles!
🟣 If you don’t have organic lemons or homegrown ones at home, try replacing their zest with a packet of vanillin or two teaspoons of vanilla extract.
🟣 To create your shapes, I recommend drawing them directly on a piece of paper and then cutting them out, or if you’re not comfortable with drawing, try downloading them from the internet as I did with the dove. They are printed on an A4 sheet, one shape per sheet otherwise they will be too small, and then they are cut out. And here’s the secret. I found this site
