Category: Holiday

This Easter time specialty from Craco was passed down from Antonia Francavilla Spero (b. Craco 1889; d. NY 1961) to her daughter Lena and then to Lena’s daughter Annette Cono Mule. It continues to be made annually.

Dough:
2 1/2 lbs flour
1 tbsp. salt
1 3/4 sticks butter melted & cooled
Crumble into flour, .make a well in flour and add
4 beaten eggs
2 oz. oil
1 cu. Warm water, add as needed
Knead until smooth ball forms.

Filling:
3 links semi dry sausage cut into small pieces
(You can use hot or sweet or a combination, remove casing of sausage).
3 lbs ricotta
3/4-lb mozzarella
3/4 wet basket cheese
1/2 dry basket cheese
6-8 eggs, 2 egg whites, reserve yolk for top brushing.
Fresh parsley
Grated romano cheese
Mix well
Use a deep 12″ pizza pan
Roll out dough, fill with mixture, roll out cover, crimp edges, prick with fork, brush with beaten egg yolk.
Bake 375 1 hr.

This recipe yields: 1 -12″ pie pan, 1-141/2″ pie pan, & 1-9″ round pie pan. The ingredients used above can only be found in Italian pork stores. The wet and dry basket cheese may only be available in some areas at Easter time.

Ingredients 

300 g of raisins

150 g of walnuts

150 g of almonds

300 g of honey

8 g of ground cinnamon and cloves

50 g of flour

1 lemon

Preparation 

Roast the walnuts and the almonds in the. oven for a few minutes. Peel and chop them. Soak the raisins in the water. Drain thoroughly. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Add 2 pinches of cinnamon and ground cloves and grated lemon zest (only the yellow zest; the white part is bitter). Add the hot honey and the flour. Continue to mix until you obtain an elastic dough. Roll out the dough to 2 cm. Cut out different shapes of cookies and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F), 15 minutes approximately.

In a few regions, these cookies are baked over a bed of lemon tree leaves on a cookie sheet. This tradition should be kept, if possible, because of the aroma of the leaves.