Today, a traditional sweet recipe: Abruzzese sweet Easter hearts.

During the Easter period, our home becomes an industrial bakery, although over the years the quantities have been significantly reduced. Among sweets, savories, breads, and Easter pizzas, there is plenty of choice with many recipes to please everyone.

The typical sweets of this period in our home are Easter hearts which can be made in the shape of a heart, doll, or horse. When I was little, everyone had their own sweet, so for us girls, the doll was made, for the boys the horse, and for the adults, the heart.

These sweets are made with an almond and chocolate dough covered in chocolate and decorated with many colorful sprinkles, and like all traditional recipes, everyone has their own recipe with variations. Some make a softer dough that needs a mold, others make a soft but workable dough, some add more almonds and some less, and some cover it with chocolate, others with icing.

Today I propose my mother’s recipe, which for me is super delicious and full of memories and emotions, with these doses you can make three little hearts.

In Abruzzo, Easter hearts or Easter bread are mainly made to give to loved ones, they are blessed during Holy Week and packaged with an olive branch.

Let’s see together, step by step, how to make this recipe.

Ingredients

Below you will find links to some of the ingredients used

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp acacia honey
5 eggs
7 oz chocolate
7 oz almonds
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1 lemon (juice and zest)
1 packet baking powder
1 tbsp brandy
7 oz chocolate
1 colorful sprinkles

Tools

Below you will find links to some of the tools used

1 Scale
1 Pastry Board
1 Cutting Board
1 Knife
1 Metal Scraper or plastic
1 Baking Pan
1 Brush
1 Small Pot for bain-marie

Let’s prepare the sweet Easter hearts together!

To start, we need to prepare the ingredients because the almonds need to be roasted and chopped and the chocolate chopped, so place the almonds on a baking tray and roast them in the oven at 350°F for about 15–20 minutes to toast them. Then let them cool and chop them coarsely with the help of a food processor.
On a cutting board, cut the chocolate into irregular pieces with a knife.
On a work surface, form a fountain with the flour and place all the dry ingredients around it and all the liquid ones in the center, then initially mix with a fork, being careful not to let them spill out of the flour edges. Once the dough is quite compact, you can knead it with your hands and help yourself with a scraper. You’ll obtain a soft but well-working dough with your hands.
Now that the dough is ready, take a baking sheet, grease and flour it (or you can use parchment paper), and draw a heart with your finger to help shape it. Lightly grease your hands, take one-third of the dough (500 grams), place it in the drawn heart, and shape it with your hands following the drawing. Make the other two hearts with a thickness of about 2–2.5 inches.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for about 30–35 minutes, then remove and let them cool.
Carefully move the Easter hearts to a work surface with parchment paper. Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie or microwave and use a brush to cover the sweets with chocolate, then decorate with colorful sprinkles, sugar decorations, and chocolate eggs.
Let the chocolate dry and enjoy the Easter sweets. While you wait, take a picture of your sweets and post it on social media by tagging me (una riccia che pasticcia instagram and facebook) and let me know to whom you will give your heart.