La Sbrisolona

This a rustic, buttery, yellow polenta and almond based crumbly cake hailing from Lombardy.

The butter, polenta and chopped almonds are the main ingredients that turn this cake crumbly in texture yet delicate.

In fact, you are meant to separate each piece using you fingers instead of slicing it with a knife.

You could make your version of sbrisolona by adding different nuts if you wish.

We somehow enjoy it in its purest form, perhaps it’s because we like to dunk its pieces into a dark, creamy and rich hot chocolate or in a bitter orange digestif after dinner. Fewer but well defined, warm deep flavours and textures accompany so well cosy autumnal and wintery afternoons.

Grease and line with baking parchment a round baking tin or tray, 24 cm in diameter.

Ingredients:

• 165 g of plain flour
• 165 g of fine yellow polenta
• 165 g of butter, cut into cubes (preferably cold)
• 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk
• 165 g of fine sugar, you could use Demerara sugar as well
• a pinch of salt
• 2 scant teaspoons of baking powder
• 60-70 g of almonds (mix peeled and non peeled), roughly chopped
• a few almonds for decoration

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Add the polenta, the sugar, the pinch of salt and the baking powder. Stir well with a spoon.

Add the cubed butter and work the dough gently in your hands, rubbing the dry ingredients into the butter.

Add the eggs and the egg yolk into the bowl and mix them gently with the dough. Now add the chopped almonds and work everything briefly.

Wrap the cake dough in cling film and press delicately to form a flat disk (say 1-2 cm thick). Leave in the fridge for 30-40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 170 C, static oven.

Take the dough out from the fridge and start separating small pieces of it with a knife, roughly

1.5 – 2 cm large, and dropping them immediately into the prepared baking tin.

Carry on until you’ve used up all the dough, creating 2 or even 3 layers of it but leaving no gaps.

Don’t press too much the individual pieces in the tin, just as much as is needed.

The cake is meant to have a rustic feel about it.

Decorate the surface by scattering with a few almonds on top (I like to use peeled almonds for it) and bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes.

Take your sbrisolona out of the oven and let it cool down in the tin before transferring it onto a large serving plate.

Decorate with some icing sugar moments before crumbling it in your hands.