Not all Donuts have a hole, in fact, the Marchigiano Ciambellone doesn’t. The name Ciambellone might be misleading, but there’s nothing we can do, we from the Marche are just like that, this is called Marchigiano Ciambellone and that’s how it will continue to be called. With its typical loaf shape, the rustic Marchigiano Ciambellone is characterized by the presence of sugar granules, which are essential in all the recipes I have read or heard from the vergare I know.
Everyone agrees that the dough for the Rustic Marchigiano Ciambellone should be hard and workable, like a kind of shortcrust pastry but without butter, and then, of course, almost everyone disagrees on: Mistrà (a homemade liquor) yes or no, Varnelli yes or no, lemon zest yes or no, hazelnut cream yes or no, and finally, jam yes or no. In short, you can get Marchigiano women to agree on a single recipe only once, and for everything else, each has her own version to tell you. So, to be neutral, I chose to heed two schools of thought: I used the grated zest from Grandma Sandra’s lemons and then plunged headfirst into the Nutella jar. I followed my father’s partner’s advice on eggs and seed oil to avoid adding butter, and then I got to work! Another little curiosity: my father and his partner call it “lu ciambellò de lo vatte”—I think it’s because it was served to men returning from the fields, otherwise I can’t explain it, and I think they now call it that out of tradition. But they know the real name of this dessert is Ciambellone delle Marche!!!
I actually decided to prepare this typical dessert from the Marche for the first time to celebrate my 13 years of blogging! Yes, it’s been 13 years since the first written recipe on the blog Le Ricette di Bea, and it still doesn’t seem real to me. This special anniversary falls on April 23. A lot has happened since the hamburger with olive recipe, I have written recipes, learned photography (more or less), recorded the first video recipes, and started many social media channels. In short, I can say I grew along with my cooking blog. For this reason, I also made the video recipe of the Marchigiano Ciambellone that you will find below and on the YouTube channel where I await you every day with many new recipes!
For this special occasion, I chose this recipe, a delicious dessert from the Marchigiano tradition, made as early as the 1920s. The first traces of a rustic ciambellone loaf were found using flour, water, and oil, baked in neighborhood ovens, and stored for men returning from the fields. It was broken and dipped in water to soften again.
It was the so-called “people feeder” that over the years underwent variations to become what we know today and still enjoy. I can’t explain why the term Ciambellone was used for a preparation without holes; to us, a donut has a hole in the center, whereas here, it’s more of a loaf resembling bread. From the crunchy crust to the soft filling on the first day, it gradually hardens. For this reason, I chose a hazelnut cream filling, which definitely helps maintain a certain internal moisture.
Jam is another version that can help it stay soft for at least two days. There is also the more classic and true version without filling. The Rustic Marchigiano Ciambellone is without filling, but some families added raisins, around the 1950s or so, and surely they were bourgeois families; I don’t think the peasants or sailors could afford to buy raisins.
I can tell you that over these almost 39 years of life, I have tasted many Marchigiano Ciambelloni prepared, of course, with various recipes; the one I propose is among the simplest and most popular. Eggs, sugar, flour, seed oil, a pinch of salt, lemon zest, a pinch of yeast, and knead. You can then fill it or leave it classic, but you will taste an authentic flavor. You will remember the “home smell”, the Sunday taste with Grandparents, family picnics or with friends, the taste of culinary traditions, savoring history has never been so delicious.
Below I also leave you other typical recipes from my region: from the Ciambelle Strozzose prepared during the Easter period, to the Vincisgrassi first course essential on Marchigiano tables on Sundays. The pasta with fava bean cream, ciauscolo, and pecorino, then the Marchigiano Maritozzi, and my Pacca Pork recipe, the hamburger I invented, dedicated to my region. Each link is clickable and will take you directly to the recipe you chose to read.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 6 people
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
- Energy 477.61 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 68.67 (g) of which sugars 24.15 (g)
- Proteins 9.83 (g)
- Fat 20.25 (g) of which saturated 7.03 (g)of which unsaturated 12.28 (g)
- Fibers 8.39 (g)
- Sodium 101.21 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 100 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 for a Marchigiano Ciambellone Recipe filled with Nutella
A rather long list of necessary ingredients, don’t be scared and continue with me!
- 2 1/2 cups flour (in my case type 00 flour)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil (in my case sunflower oil)
- 1/3 cup milk (at room temperature, in my case skimmed)
- 1/3 cup sugar (white)
- 1 egg (whole at room temperature)
- 1 egg yolk (at room temperature)
- 1 tbsp baking powder (approximately half a packet)
- lemon zest (in my case untreated from grandma)
- 1 egg white (or a yolk)
- 1 dash milk
- as needed sugar granules (plenty)
- as needed chocolate chips (optional)
- as needed raw cane sugar (coarse, Grandma Sandra's trick)
- as needed Nutella® (or jam of your choice)
Tips and Advice: in the list of ingredients, you’ll find those that absolutely must be at room temperature, never cold. You can vary the type of vegetable oil, and you can substitute the lemon zest with a couple of teaspoons of Varnelli or homemade mistrà if you have it (in theory, production is banned, but there are always some bootleggers around the region).
The Vergare will then tell you to use a yolk or a whole egg to brush the surface of the Marchigiano Ciambellone, but it seemed too much to me, I mean mine is small. Perfect for 6 people, so a whole egg seemed excessive. So I opted for the egg white I had set aside from the ingredient list needed to prepare the base of the dessert and added the milk that was going to be added anyway.
Another variation I made was the chocolate chips, which were not used before, but I always have them in abundance and love them very much. Then I followed Grandma Sandra, who always adds raw cane sugar to her desserts. If you’re familiar with the Marchigiano Ciambelloni of the Grandmas, this time I mean those with a hole in the center, they are always tall and soft, almost hard outside, marbled, and there the trick is the sugar and flour they use to dust the mold after greasing it.
The last and most important variation is the Nutella, could I make a birthday dessert without something super delicious? Come on, what kind of birthday would it be without Nutella!!!
Tools to prepare the Marchigiano Ciambellone
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Pastry Board
- 1 Baking Tray
- 1 Parchment Paper
- 1 Silicone Rolling Pin
- 1 Scale
- 1 Oven
- 4 Small Bowls
- 1 Grater
- 1 Cooling Rack
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Knife
- 1 Brush
List of useful tools that may seem long, but you’ll see it’s not so challenging to prepare this typical dessert from the Marche, rather, we’ll dirty more things than anything else. But trust me, it’s worth it; as soon as you start baking the Marchigiano Ciambellone and smell it in your kitchen, you won’t think about the bowls to wash anymore. Promise!
Steps for the Marchigiano Ciambellone Regional Recipe
Let’s start this recipe by weighing all the ingredients, as you may have already noticed, some have the same weight. Indeed, 70 grams of sugar, milk, and seed oil. Here it’s impossible to make a mistake, three small bowls, and you weigh these ingredients. Then we sift the flour, in my case a classic type 00 flour, then weigh the grams of baking powder, preferably if you find it vanilla-flavored, as Marche grandmothers call it “the little paper.” And then we’ll be ready to start. Take a nice bowl with high edges, place it directly on the wooden pastry board, and I’ll tell you why later.
Let’s not forget to turn on the oven, this dessert doesn’t have rising times, unlike others, even its appearance might be deceiving, so we need a hot oven. Therefore, bring the oven to 350°F with static mode and tie the apron my friends vergari and vergare of today!
Pour the sifted flour into the bowl, make a small hole in the center where you’ll break the eggs, one whole and just the yolk of one. Keep the egg white aside; we’ll need it to brush the surface of the Nutella ciambellone. Arm yourself with a spatula and start working the ingredients; as you go, we’ll add the seed oil and milk. Then granulated sugar, a pinch of salt, grated lemon zest, and finally the baking powder.
You’ll see that gradually the dough will become hard to work with the spatula, so transfer it onto the wooden pastry board we placed under our bowl. The step of working the ingredients in the bowl is brief, practically to avoid the flour fountain that I can’t manage, I’m not good with a fork and such; I usually lose the liquids on the pastry board and make a mess with flour everywhere and the dough not worked well. So I’ve perfected this little trick, first the bowl where I make a quick first dough having all the ingredients inside, then I transfer it to the pastry board to perfect the dough. This way, I avoid dirtying everything and poorly working my dough. Try it and let me know if you also find it better this way as I do. In the video recipe, you can see clearly how easy it is to execute this trick. It’s a bit like when we use a stand mixer, which would be wasted here, but the concept is similar. A first dough with hands in the bowl, and then off you go.
We have now prepared our dough, now we have two options. Divide our dough into two equal parts and roll one at a time with the rolling pin to less than a centimeter thick. Or roll out the entire dough, as I did, with the rolling pin on the pastry board. The reason for these options is simple. Your manual skill will make the difference, I, who trust my little hands less, chose the second because it’s much easier in my humble opinion. I chose the book closure to have to close with my hands only the two ends and one side of the Marchigiano dessert. The other is riskier for me for leakage of filling during baking.
You can in the first case roll the ciambellone base, spread the filling and then roll the second base and cover the filling with the latter. Be careful that rolling the two bases doesn’t stick to the wooden base of the board, so turn them over several times while rolling them. Make sure also to close all the edges, besides the head and tail of the loaf. Exert good pressure on the entire outer part of the loaf.
In the second case, or mine, roll the fake shortcrust once, with the rolling pin, always being careful that the dough doesn’t stick to the wooden pastry board. In the video recipe, indeed, I show that I detach and turn it several times to check that it doesn’t stick to the board. In the center, then dispose of the Nutella using the spatula or a spoon, close the two outer parts like a book, first one and then the other, towards the center. Exert good pressure on the two ends to close the loaf, thus avoiding leaks of Nutella or jam during baking.
Whatever version you choose, remember not to exceed a centimeter thickness of the shortcrust.
Now that we have, in both cases, closed the rustic Marchigiano ciambellone, we need to give it the classic loaf shape. With the hands, try to lengthen the dough, in the video, this step is seen very well. Also, try to tighten well with your fingers the external edges, indeed check that there are no cracks in the dough. Given the loaf of bread shape to our dessert, we are ready to proceed with baking.
If instead, you want to prepare the Rustic Marchigiano Ciambellone without filling, you will simply have to work the dough, roll it always with the rolling pin, fold over itself, lengthen with the fingers closing ends and sides, give the loaf of bread shape. The step of the second variant I proposed, excluding, however, the filling. For this reason, I proposed filling our dessert, that is, in the end, we had to roll the shortcrust anyway, so better to make it richer than ever!!!
Since the oven will already be at the correct temperature, all that remains is to place the Marchigiano ciambellone filled with Nutella on a baking tray where we will have already placed a sheet of parchment paper. Take the egg white we set aside, pour a tablespoon of milk, and with a kitchen brush, brush the surface of our Marchigiano dessert with Nutella. Then sprinkle with sugar granules, chocolate chips, and finally, as Grandma says, add the extra touch, coarse raw cane sugar. It will give color and more crunchiness to the surface of our rustic dessert.
Bake the Marchigiano Nutella-filled Cake for about 30 to a maximum of 35 minutes; you will see it become gradually golden on the surface, it will crack, and don’t worry. This dessert must have cracks; it’s almost inevitable but also a sign that we have worked well, that is, cracks yes but the filling must not leak out. Before turning off the oven, do the toothpick test, I recommend, then remove it from the oven, transfer to a cooling rack and let cool.
Do not leave the dessert in the baking tray; it risks becoming too hard because it continues to absorb the heat. The resting time before slicing is at least 30 minutes, before you risk it breaking and the Nutella being too liquid.
I know resisting is hard, but it is for the final success of the recipe. Then you can enjoy it slice by slice, bite by bite. You will see that the Nutella filling will be soft and creamy, super delicious, and it won’t disappoint you! In Marche they eat well but are in no hurry; if you’ve ever been to our lunch, you already know that you sit down at half-past twelve and get up at 5, otherwise you haven’t been to lunch. And I feel like adding that even 6 pm isn’t so bad as a time.
Now all that’s left is to leave you to the tasting, remind you that I wait for you every day in my kitchen with the Recipe of the Day and many other curiosities live from my culinary world. I wish you a good appetite and especially wish a happy birthday to my beloved recipe blog!
This typical dessert from the Marche is served for breakfast or snack, it was made for holiday days to be brought in the picnic basket for lunch by the sea or in the mountains. Being Family was also sitting in a meadow with a dessert prepared by Grandma or Mom with the oldest recipe, the one that was passed from mother to daughter on a note or by kneading together. I have had the fortune of having two grandmothers who have always given their best in the kitchen, one fortunately is still here with me to give advice and pearls of wisdom of a poor peasant cuisine but at the same time unique in its kind.
Preservation of the Marchigiano Ciambellone filled with soft and creamy Nutella
Heavens open, here the Vergare are discordant: some close it in the paper bag of the bread, some close it with the tea towel, then in the bag and then in the bread drawer. Then there’s who closes it in the dessert container after wrapping it with a dampened kitchen cloth, then again who just puts it in the dessert container and good night. Then there’s me who, as always, takes a “middle way,” putting myself in the middle of the discussion. A nice tea towel, but not dampened, wrapped around the sweet loaf and then stored in a dessert container.
Of the proposed storage variants, choose the one you prefer, because in my opinion, this delicious dessert won’t make it to the next day. In fact, at my place, it was already finished in the evening, my father was curious to try the version of this recipe prepared by the daughter, my friend Isa who came over for coffee, and then, of course, myself, who even though on a diet, had to absolutely taste this dessert.
Going back in time, to when you were a child and snacks or breakfast was genuine, prepared by Grandma, without preservatives or other things. Indeed, my grandmother didn’t add hazelnut cream, at most some jam prepared by her. Just like my partner’s grandmother, the oldest jams in the pantry, the ones you’ve prepared but haven’t used yet, always end up in this dessert because then, it just so happens, everyone likes it.
