CANESTRELLI are those cookies that tell a story of tradition at first glance: small golden flowers, with an elegant and recognizable shape, covered with a white veil of powdered sugar that looks like light snow. Buttery, crumbly and delicately flavored, they are a symbol of Ligurian and Piedmontese pastry, handed down from generation to generation as a little daily treat. Their magic lies in the texture: a buttery dough that literally melts in the mouth thanks to the use of hard-boiled egg yolk, a secret ingredient of the traditional recipe that gives them a unique, soft and sandy fragrance at the same time.
Perfect for breakfast with a steaming cup of tea, or as an after-meal sweet, canestrelli have that reassuring taste that brings back childhood and grandmothers’ kitchens. Made with a few simple ingredients – flour, butter, sugar and vanilla – they are an ode to well-made simplicity, to the care of slow gestures and to handmade work that smells like home. Their flower shape, often made with antique or heirloom cutters, makes every cookie a little jewel, also ideal for gifting during the holidays or assembling a homemade cookie assortment.
In their apparent simplicity, canestrelli enclose a story of lands, alpine pastures and traditions.
Every bite recalls Italian artisan pastry, the kind that doesn’t need anything extra to be perfect. Just break a canestrello, feel how crumbly it is and let yourself be won over by its buttery, delicate flavor to understand: these are the timeless cookies, the ones that never go out of style.
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- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very inexpensive
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 28 pieces
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Christmas, All seasons
- Energy 90.42 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 10.49 (g) of which sugars 5.11 (g)
- Proteins 1.13 (g)
- Fat 5.06 (g) of which saturated 3.14 (g)of which unsaturated 1.88 (g)
- Fibers 0.16 (g)
- Sodium 15.33 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 21 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 3 egg yolks (hard-boiled)
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup + 1 tbsp potato starch
- 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp powdered sugar
- 2/3 cup butter (cold)
- 1 packet vanillin (vanilla powder)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/3 cup powdered sugar
What you’ll need for the canestrelli
- 1 Cookie cutter for canestrello
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Small saucepan
- 1 Sieve
- 1 Plastic wrap
- 1 Work surface
- 1 Rolling pin
- 1 Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
Canestrelli Preparation
Place the eggs in a small saucepan and cover with cold water, set over the heat and boil them for 10 minutes from the time the water boils.
Cool them under cold running water and peel them, keeping the yolks whole.
In a bowl, sift the flour and potato starch, add the powdered sugar, the vanillin and a pinch of salt. The presence of potato starch guarantees the “melting in the mouth” texture: do not replace it.
Mix the dry ingredients, add the cold butter cut into cubes and work everything with your fingertips until you obtain a sandy mixture.Add the sieved hard-boiled yolks and knead quickly until you form a smooth, homogeneous dough.
Do not overwork the shortcrust to avoid warming the butter. You can make the ovis mollis shortcrust with a stand mixer using the paddle attachment.
Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.Roll the dough out on a lightly floured work surface to a thickness of about 3/8 inch (1 cm) (canestrelli should be thick!).
Cut out the cookies with a flower-shaped cutter with a central hole. If you don’t have one, as I did, use a flower cutter about 2 3/8 inches (6 cm) and make the central hole with the base of a piping tip.Transfer the cookies to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and place them in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes. This way, as they cool, they will keep their shape during baking.
Bake the canestrelli in a preheated static oven at 338°F for 14 minutes. They should remain pale: do not let them brown.
Remove them from the oven and let them cool completely. Do not touch them before because, being very crumbly, they could break.
Serve dusted with plenty of powdered sugar.
Storage
Once completely cool, store them in a tin box or an airtight container.
Separate them with sheets of parchment paper if you stack them, so they don’t break.
They keep perfectly for 10–14 days, remaining crisp and fragrant.
