Today I couldn’t help but publish a traditional recipe like that of the bread of the dead. After the explanation I gave you yesterday regarding what I think of Halloween, it seems right to spend a few words on a dessert from my tradition, a typical dessert of the Rimini area, the bread of the dead, indeed.

It is, like many desserts from the farming tradition, a not very sweet dessert. I think that’s why it’s called bread, but also because it’s a flat dessert, a sweet bread, more similar to a bread (and indeed the bread is an unleavened bread).

This one you see in the photos is my first example of bread of the dead made by me 😊 or, in general, made in my house, because in fact even my mother never made a homemade bread of the dead. And there’s a reason for that. When my aunt was alive, my legendary Aunt Marcella, this dessert, and others which I will gradually talk to you about over time, were the aunt’s desserts, they were the desserts my aunt regularly brought us, usually every Monday, and that have remained in the memory of our family. My aunt had a little shop of homemade fresh pasta (made right in her house, in her kitchen. Yes indeed, when I was a child the regulations were different from the current ones!) and all kinds of baked goods, which she prepared and then took to bake in the oven, meaning the bread and sweets producer with the attached shop, who made its oven, meaning the cooking tool, available to third parties.

Therefore, when I was a child, the bread of the dead – and also the fava beans of the dead, almond cookies also indispensable during the All Saints’ and ‘for the dead’ holidays – was one of the typical desserts of this period of the year that were invariably supplied by the aunt.

Every bakery, and in recent years even every supermarket, sells its own version of the bread of the dead. Not all have products similar to those of my aunt, but one or two manage to come very close.

Unfortunately, I do not have Aunt Marcella’s original recipe, but this year I wanted at all costs to prepare one, which is the one I am telling you about. 😊

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Below I have put the links to other typical recipes I have written about, in which I told a little about myself and the traditions of this part of Romagna 👇

Difficulty: Medium
Cost: Economical
Rest time: 8 Hours
Preparation time: 15 Minutes
Portions: 8
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Regional Italian
Region: Emilia-Romagna
Seasonality: Autumn

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups Type 1 flour
1/4 cube fresh yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup water
7 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup walnuts
3/8 cup raisins
2 tbsp corn oil
pine nuts, almonds (to taste for decoration)

Tools

Bowl
Cake Tin

Steps

Prepare the dough as you usually do for bread dough:
Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water with the sugar.
Add to the flour (Type 0 is also fine, I used Type 1 because I am sure the farmers of the past always used less refined flours).
Work with your hands until you get a soft and elastic dough.
Put the dough to rise in a sheltered place until at least doubled.
👉 I deliberately used a small amount of yeast to avoid tasting it. Naturally, with little yeast the leavening is slower; in this case, I made the dough in the evening and let it rise overnight to prepare the bread of the dead in the morning.
Once risen, add and mix into the dough about half of the walnuts (coarsely chopped), the raisins, the sugar, and the oil.
☝ It feels strange to add oil to already risen dough, and I must admit, while working it with my hands, I was skeptical, fearing I wouldn’t achieve anything good. But I continued to knead until the sugar dissolved and the oil was well mixed into the dough.
The final effect is rather greasy, but after baking, it is no longer.
Spread the dough with your hands into a cake tin (I used a 24 cm) covered with parchment paper.
Distribute the remaining walnuts on the surface, preferably in large pieces because they make a better appearance. 😃
Also add some almonds and a few pine nuts.
😉 The recipe I was inspired by didn’t include pine nuts, but my memory told me they had to be there, and then even my mom, who happened to be in my kitchen while I was kneading, confirmed it for me, so I added them.
Bake at 390°F for 20-25 minutes; with my oven, it was sufficient. It won’t rise much during cooking. But the final result will be excellent.
If desired, it is possible to “glaze” the surface with honey (slightly heated to distribute better), but I preferred this natural version.
Before finding this recipe, I surfed a bit. There are several, of course, some recipes include eggs, others are vegan (well, like mine, now that I think about it!). However, after reading several, I decided on this recipe from the blog Ieri & oggi in cucina, which I liked because it also included the dialect version, so, let’s say, I considered it “sufficiently Romagna-like.” 🙂 Then I adjusted the proportions to the amount of flour I used and personalized it with the addition of pine nuts and almonds, in my opinion necessary as I already said. I obtained a bread of the dead that, yes, is not identical to Aunt Marcella’s, but it replaces it worthily both in appearance and taste!
Thanks for reading this recipe! 🙂💛