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When driving through the Umbrian countryside during the week prior to Easter, you’ll note whiffs of smoke drifting up from the outdoor stone bread ovens fired up by the local farm women.
The torte di Pasqua (also called torte di formaggio or “cheese cakes”) line up in the windows of pastry shops and bakeries here in Umbria (and only in Umbria!) as the cheese bread is the centerpiece of our Easter Sunday morning breakfast.
The traditional “cake” or “pizza” is a raised cheese bread, made of eggs, flour, olive oil, salt, pepper and three kinds of cheeses: parmigiano, pecorino and groviera.
Townspeople head to the bakeries a couple days before Easter to book their torte – if they are not lucky enough to receive one from a farm family.
Later in the week, on Holy Saturday, the blessing of the homemade torte di Pasqua takes place in the countryside churches and small chapels.
There are two small churches in our rural area here just outside of Assisi where the local priest, Padre Giuseppe, blesses the cheese breads without fail every year.
- Contributed by Anne Robichaud, lecturer, cook class organizer, and expert guide to Umbria. Be sure to visit her site to read about her work and stories!
Interesting note, Ann, but here in Alto Lazio we’ve seen the breads in markets in Vitorchiano! Get out the food police!
We just hosted Anne at our home in Charlotte for two cooking classes. We met her last summer in Umbria. She showed us the wonderful city of Assisi and also took us to many markets to buy food for a cooking class in her home on a farm just outside of town. It was a wonderful experience. She is a great guide and teacher. Can’t say enough about her.
I enjoyed your article about the Easter cheese bread as not many people know about this Italian delicacy. Just wanted to say that this bread is popular not only in Umbria but also in Le Marche where my family originated. When we lived in Canada my grandmother used to bake for days at Easter producing at least 10-15 Easter cakes for all our relatives. Now I live in Italy in Le Marche where I do translations for an important company, but most important, I own a hotel and restaurant(see website). When Easter comes around my chef makes a fantastic Easter cake that is eaten on Easter Sunday together with salami, hard-boiled eggs and chopped lamb liver. Happy Easter to everyone.
Sweet greetings from Frog Hollow Farm. Oh, to be in a place where women are baking these wonderful creations in their outdoor ovens…sigh. Ciao, bella!
This is actually a bread, rather than a pie, and is common over a broad swath of central Italy, from Umbria to the Marches, and goes by a number of names. In Umbria it’s a Torta di Pasqua, whereas the Marchigiani, and especially those of the provinces of Pesaro and Ancona, know it as Crescia Brusca, and others still call it Pizza di Pasqua. It’s often served as an antipasto, and is very good with cold cuts. This particular recipe is easy to do, though it does require several hours of resting time.
You’ll need:
• Salt
• 3 eggs and 2 yolks
• A little rendered lard
• 1 1/4 cups (150 g) unbleached all purpose flour
• 9 ounces (250 g) bread dough (buy this from your baker, or make your own bread dough from scratch — see below)
• 2 cups freshly grated Parmigiano
• 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon (100 g) olive oil
• 1/4 pound (100 g) fresh pecorino (a mild sheep’s milk cheese; Romano will be too sharp here), finely diced
Crack the eggs into a bowl and add the two yolks as well; salt lightly and stir in the cheese and the olive oil. Let the mixture rest for at least four hours.
Flour your work surface, spread the bread dough out over it, and work the remaining flour into it; shape the dough into a mound, scoop a well into it, put the cheese mixture into the well, and incorporate it.
Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it, and set it in a warm place to rise for at least two hours. Once it has risen, grease a high-sided bread mold with the lard and put the dough into it. Cover the pan and let the dough rise another hour; towards the end of the hour preheat your oven to 360 F (180 C).
They say to bake it for about 10 minutes, which strikes me as not enough; I’d bake it for a half hour to 45 minutes, and employ the toothpick test (stick it into the bread, and if it comes out dry the bread is done), let it cool for 20 minutes, and turn it out onto a rack. It can be served hot or cold, and achieves amazing grace when it’s sprinkled with shaved black truffles. In their absence, it’s perfect with salami or hard-boiled eggs.
Courtesy of: http://www.italianfood.about.com
http://www.oliveoilshoppe.com
Sounds amazing – can anyone share a recipe?
I can’t wait ’til Sunday, when at midday after Mass, I’ll be eating my cheesy bread, my slices of salame Felino, my hard-boiled eggs and my Pastiera!! Oh, Easter I love thee.
Wonderful Note, so glad you could introduce this delight to the many people who don’t know about it.
A lovely tradition!
My grandparents were from Gubbio and they called it Crescia. Nonna made Crescia every year at Easter and it was a family favorite. She passed her recipe on to me but it is so time consuming to make that I rarely attempt it. She used Locatelli cheese (a type of Pecorino Romano) and also coarse black pepper. It is very dense and rich and thus not something you would use for sandwiches!!! I studied in Perugia a few years ago and discovered a few panetterie that sell something similar throughout the year (not just at Easter). I even found a restaurant (Ristorante La Rosetta) that serves something similar in their ‘bread basket.’ These versions are smaller and lighter than what Nonna made, but it was the closest thing I’d seen to Crescia anywhere. Interestingly, I’ve never seen it in Gubbio. But then I’ve never been in Gubbio at Easter. Sounds like I need to make another trip . . .
How deliciously charming!!
THE RECIPE LOOKS FANTASTIC, WE WILL TRY IT, AND LET YOU KNOW THE OUTCOME BUONA PASQUA A TUTTI , SALUTE E PACE CIAO
Hello Anne,
The article on the Easter bread only intrigued me to go look into all of my Italian cookbooks and not find a single cheese bread made at Easter. They are all sweet and they are what I am accustomed to, thanks to Maria’s recipe I will try the cheese bread tomorrow after I purchase all of the ingredients.
I was one of the guests at Bob and Marilyn’s home, the guy who did most of the chopping.
Sincerely,
Anthony
I can not find Nonna’s recipe, but I did find one in a cookbook I purchased in Perugia. It sounds quite similar to Nonna’s. Here’s the english translation:
Ingredients – 3 cups flour, 1 ounce yeast, 1 cup grated pecorino cheese, 1/2 cup diced gruyere (groviera, in italiano), 3 whole eggs, 1 egg yolk, 2 tablespoons lard, 4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup milk, salt and pepper. (My note – Nonna used locatelli romano pecorino cheese. She also used coarse ground pepper in the bread. This recipe is silent on whether the grind should be fine or coarse.)
Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. Put flour in a heap on the pastry board, make a well in the center and add the eggs, lard, olive oil, both cheeses, milk, salt and pepper, together with the yeast (and related liquid). Knead thoroughly to obtain a soft, smooth, elastic dough. (My note – the dough should definitely be smooth and elastic. The only part that isn’t smooth are the small chunks of gruyere cheese.)
Let the dough stand in a deep fired clay or tin-plated copper casserole in a warm place. (My note – Nonna had neither a clay nor tin-plated copper casserole. She used her Revere-ware soup pot. The end result looked like the photos in this article – - a round, straight-sided bread with a domed top.) It should rise to two or three times its original volume. Bake the bread in the casserole for about an hour in an oven preheated to 350 degrees F.
Like others have mentioned, our tradition was to serve the Crescia with hard boiled eggs and capocollo.
As a PS, my grandmother immigrated to the US as a teenager. She came from a very large family, married someone who immigrated after WWI, and kept a very Italian household. Crescia and grilled lamb were THE important dishes at Easter.
Thanks you so much for having this recipe online. I grew up 2nd generation Italian American. Both of my paternal grandparents were from the Abruzzo region. My family made a very similar bread every year. We would save the palms and bake them into the top of the bread in the shape of a cross. We called this bread Pustege (phonetic spelling). Actually it was more of a dense eggy sharp cheese cake.
I realise that recipes differ from region to region. But this is the closest recipe I have found to date to what we ate and made when I was a child.