Masone is a small village in the Beigua Park, just in the back of Genoa city. It has always been a holiday resort of the Genoese and is well known from a gastronomic point of view for its famous biscuits: Crumiri of Masone.
Like the famous Pedimont Krumiri also those of Masone are biscuits made from fine ground corn flour (also known as “fioretto flour” in Italy) wheat flour, butter and sugar.
Unlike the Piedmonts, however, they do not have eggs inside but milk and, like many Ligurian sweets, they are flavored with fresh lemon peel.
You can buy them in Masone pastry shops (such as the historic Pasticceria Mosto) and are protected by the brand “Gustosi per Natula”, a quality brand promoted by the Beigua Park to protect traditional local products.
Today I share with you the recipe of Crumiri di Masone as they are cookies with the taste of simple things, like the ones I like, perfect to close a summer dinner sipping something good and alcoholic.
They are in fact perfect “meditational cookies” (“for chatting”, better to say) that perfectly match (perhaps thanks to the lemon peel inside) with a glass of icy limoncello drunk in small sips under a starry sky.
Limoncello in our house (when mine is finished…) is just Limoncello di Santo Stefano of the Ligurian spirits makers Nuovo Liquorificio Fabbrizii in Val D’Aveto.
It is a limoncello different from the others because it is definitely richer in flavor and not so sweet, exactly like the one I homemade.
At the moment it is produced with the lemon peels of Sorrento PGI lemons but soon they will produce it with the lemons of our Riviera, thus aligning this product with all the others whose ingredients originate exclusively in Liguria.
So here is the recipe for preparing Crumiri di Masone and enjoy your summer dinners under the stars!
Crumiri of Masone: cookies for a summer limoncello
Ingredients
- 210 g of very fine ground corn flour
- 210 g of butter
- 90 of wheat flour
- 90 g of sugar
- 80 ml of milk
- 1 untreated lemon
Instructions
- Cut the butter into cubes and let it soften at room temperature for 15 minutes.
- Sieve both flours in a stand mixer or in a large bowl with high edges.
- Grate the lemon peel, avoiding the white part, and add it to the flours.
- Add the sugar, the softened butter and the milk and work with the mixer or a spoon until you get a smooth dough.
- If necessary, add some milk because the dough must be soft enough to be spread with the pastry bag.
- Cover with a clean cloth and let it rest for half an hour.
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper, then transfer the dough into a pastry bag with a star spout and shape many sticks well spaced each other bending slightly in the center to give the traditional half moon shape.
- Let them rest in the refrigerator already shaped for half an hour . They will harden and keep more the shape in cooking.
- Bake at 200 ºC (ventilated oven) for 5 minutes and then lower to 180 ºC and cook for 10 minutes more or until they turn brown.
- You can store them for long time in a tin box.
I have made this post in collaboration with Nuovo Liquorificio Fabbrizii in Val d’Aveto, which has a deep bond with Liguria and, for this reason, promotes its food and wine traditions.
