Have you ever tasted the Little Birds of Saint Anthony? It is a typical Abruzzese recipe, more precisely from Teramo, to which I am very attached.
Delicious and very scenic sweets that are prepared every year on January 17th to celebrate Saint Anthony Abbot.
“Li cillitte“, or “celli ripieni” (as they are called in the province of Pescara) are cookies, made with a simple dough: water, wine, oil, sugar, and flour.
They are then filled with a filling based on grape jam which in Abruzzo is called Scrucchiata, almonds, chocolate, cooked wine, and breadcrumbs. Flavored with cinnamon or lemon zest.
Once filled, they are hand-carved with a pair of scissors until they more or less take the shape of a little bird!
I still remember with emotion, when I was a girl, the preparations for this feast. We gathered at Grandma’s house to prepare “li cillitte” (the little birds).
I watched in awe as Grandma and Mom, with simple gestures, brought these beautiful sweets to life.
Saint Anthony Abbot is considered the protector of domestic animals, livestock, and farmers. Perhaps for this reason, the sweet representing him has this particular shape reminiscent of the animal world.
Saint Anthony Abbot was depicted as a bearded man, dressed in a tunic and a white rope as a belt.
During the feast, you can meet “li Sandandonijre“, men in long tunics, reminiscent of the tunic, with a stick in hand, walking through the streets of the village.
They go house to house singing ancient songs accompanied by “lu ddù botte“, an ancient Abruzzese organ.
“Li cillitte de Sand’Andonie“, as we call them in the Teramo dialect, are made with a lactose-free shortcrust pastry.
The really delicious filling is based on cooked wine, as tradition dictates.
For those who cannot find cooked wine, there is also a recipe for an alternative filling.
I have also made a short video to show you the individual steps related to the decoration of the little bird, you can find it here: Tutorial Little Birds of Saint Anthony
⚠️👉 At the bottom, you will also find an update of this recipe dated 2026.
Other typical Abruzzese recipes I recommend trying ❤️
Teramo-style sweet pizza
Abruzzese bocconotti
Teramo-style Easter pizza (step-by-step photo)
Abruzzese pudding (or lattacciolo) grandma’s recipe
Sweet ricotta puffs
Toasted almonds
Soft waffles cooked with iron with the original recipe
Fried Abruzzese cheese
Teramo-style ‘mbusse crepes
Egg-free Abruzzese scrippelletti
and more…
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Medium
- Rest time: 15 Minutes
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Cooking methods: Electric oven
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1 cup Olive oil (about 7 oz)
- 1 cup Dry white wine (about 7 oz)
- 3 tbsp Sugar
- All-purpose flour (about 4 cups, the dough should be soft)
- Grape jam (the typical Abruzzese one is called Scrucchiata, or plum jam if not available, 1 and a half jars, about 18 oz)
- 1 cup Cooked wine
- 2 cups Breadcrumbs (preferably homemade)
- 3.5 oz Dark chocolate
- 3.5 oz Almonds (toasted and chopped)
- Ground cinnamon (or lemon zest)
- Plum jam (or grape jam, about 18 oz)
- 3.5 oz Dark chocolate
- 1 Lemon zest
- Ground cinnamon (or lemon zest)
- 3.5 oz Almonds (toasted and chopped)
Tools
- 1 Pastry board
- 1 Rolling pin
- 2 Bowls
- Food processor
- Ladle
Preparation
Pour the olive oil (preferably light and delicate, otherwise you can use seed oil), dry white wine, and sugar into a bowl. Mix with a hand whisk to combine the ingredients.
Now, gradually add the flour, little by little, and mix with a ladle. This is an old family recipe, my grandmother used to prepare it by “eyeing” the flour!
You need to add a little at a time until you get a soft dough that doesn’t stick to your hands. Approximately, you will need between 4 and 4.5 cups of flour.
Once you have a smooth and homogeneous dough, cover the wine dough to let it rest for a few hours (even better if overnight) and move on to preparing the filling.
For the filling of the little birds in Abruzzo, we use the famous and delicious Montepulciano Grape Jam, the same we use to prepare bocconotti. If you don’t have it, you can use only plum jam (or half plum and half cherry or blueberries).
Put the jam in a bowl, add the chopped dark chocolate, a pinch of cinnamon, the toasted and chopped peeled almonds using a mini chopper. Then add the cooked wine and breadcrumbs and mix all the ingredients well.
If you can’t find cooked wine, you can choose the second filling described above. Now take the dough, use your hands to take small portions, roll them out with a rolling pin to get a rather thin and rectangular sheet.
Fill each portion with a couple of teaspoons of filling. Fold the sheet over itself and roll it under your fingers, as you would with potato rolls to make gnocchi.
Shape each piece into a bird shape (in an S shape), creating a head and tail at the two ends.
With the help of a pair of scissors, preferably small, make small incisions along the entire perimeter.
Always with the scissors, cut the tail and the beak. Finally, create the eye by placing a chocolate drop on each piece.
Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake the little birds at 350°F in a preheated static oven for about 30 minutes.
As soon as they start to color, remove the little birds from the oven and let them cool. You can also dust them with powdered sugar.
And voilà, your beautiful and delicious Little Birds of Saint Anthony are ready to win everyone over!
When forming the little birds, make sure there are no openings along “the belly” because during baking the filling would come out.
Seal well with the help of your fingers and place them on the tray with the back part down.
Article protected by copyright © – Gabriella Geroni © All rights reserved
After a long time, I return to this old and dear recipe to give you a little update.
I found an old notebook of my mom’s, where she wrote the recipes of her beloved mom Aldina. Here I discovered a variant for making the little birds.
The ingredients are the same as reported, the difference lies in the way Grandma incorporated the cooked wine for making the filling.
Since I don’t know if this variant is more faithful to tradition than the one reported above (both followed in the family), I write it anyway.
At the top of the article, I also included the video I made following this second variant.
After setting aside the toasted and chopped almonds with the chocolate, take a saucepan and pour the cooked wine into it.
Place it over the heat, on a low flame, and wait for it to come to a boil. Then turn off the heat and throw in all the breadcrumbs at once.
Stir with a wooden spoon so that the breadcrumbs completely absorb the cooked wine.
Be careful to break up the breadcrumbs well to avoid clumps. At that point, pour everything into a bowl along with the other filling ingredients listed above (grape jam, chocolate, and almonds, cinnamon, and if you like, also orange zest and lemon zest) and mix well.
The filling is ready! Then proceed with the rest of the recipe.
Of course, as indicated above, those who do not have cooked wine can fill the little birds with the second filling.
How are these sweets stored?
They keep for days and days well covered, otherwise the dough loses its fragrance.
They can also be frozen to preserve them longer and avoid waste.
In this last case, just take them out a few hours before and then enjoy them as if they were freshly baked.Can I prepare the filling in advance?
Yes, of course! Both the filling and the dough for the little birds can be prepared the day before and stored in the fridge well covered. Alternatively, they can be prepared well in advance and frozen.
In this case, I recommend defrosting them slowly in the fridge to avoid thermal shocks and spoil the product.
Once defrosted, proceed with the recipe and baking.Can I omit the wine in the dough?
No! This is a typical dough, and wine is a very important element that makes the dough crisp and elastic. Once baked, the wine is not tasted, so it must be used as a necessary ingredient.
Is it necessary to rest the dough in the fridge?
Yes, it is important to stabilize the dough and allow for better rolling of the sheets to be filled.
How many little birds come out with these quantities?
The number is absolutely variable and very subjective because it obviously depends on the size you give to each sweet. Some make them tiny, in miniature, and in this case, you can get even more than 60.
If you make them like mine, which are of medium size, thirty seems to be the maximum number. Since they are really delicious, the smaller you make them, the more you can satisfy everyone; otherwise, they disappear in an instant!!!!
