Cantucci (= Tuscan Almond Biscuits)
You can find Cantucci, the renowned, typically Tuscan biscuits, just about anywhere. However La Vialla’s are exceptional, not only because they faithfully respect the original, rustic recipe (normally the Cantucci found on sale are uninteresting, too soft, too refined and too “cake shop”), but also because they are baked in the Fattoria’s wood-burning ovens. Made exclusively with flour, almonds, sugar and organic eggs, these simple biscuits contain no artificial ingredients or flavouring extracts which prejudice genuineness and nutritional quality.
Ingredients: Cane sugar, Almonds, Wholegrain wheat flour, Eggs, White soft wheat flour, Baking powder.
Viallini (= Biscuits with Raisins, Pine Nuts and Walnuts)
A recipe brought to the Fattoria, over 39 years ago, by Piera, a cook here at that time. She put them in the wood-fired oven after baking bread. The dried fruit in the original recipe was whatever Piera had in the house or “foraged” outdoors, according to the season. The Fattoria’s baker, Francesco, decided to try adding a few walnuts to the dough. The “new” Viallini were a great success and now walnuts are among the ingredients.
Ingredients: Cane sugar, Wholegrain wheat flour, White soft wheat flour, Vin Santo del Chianti, Extra virgin olive oil, Raisins, Pine nuts, Walnuts, Icing Sugar, Baking powder.
Brutti ma Buoni (= Biscuits with Egg Whites, Hazelnuts and Almonds)
In olden-day farmhouses, never wanting to throw anything away, sensible housewives would use up leftover egg whites by adding a little sugar and making meringues. Some, with a bit more imagination, tried mixing almonds with the egg whites. And this is how the “Brutti ma Buoni” (= literally, ugly but good) were born. The strange name of these delicious little biscuits, “bestowed” on them, jokingly we like to think, by someone’s husband, fits them perfectly.
Like the Cantucci and the Viallini, they are handmade, one by one, and baked in the wood-fired oven, as per tradition, and, to tell the truth they are… ugly (their dough is unusual: it can’t be “rolled out” or shaped into a pleasant form using pastry cutters) but tasty!
Ingredients: Hazelnuts, Almonds, Cane sugar, Egg whites, Lemon.
Stracci (= Red Wine Biscuits for All Ages)
These thin, unevenly shaped biscuits have a humble, Tuscan-style name (Stracci = rags) and simple ingredients (oil, red wine, flour, sugar, no butter or yeast). They are delicious and crunchy but have one big defect: they are so moreish it’s impossible to stop eating them!
Ingredients: Wholegrain soft wheat flour, Cane sugar, White soft wheat flour, Vino Novo wine, Extra virgin olive oil, Icing sugar.