Polenta biscuit recipe
Torta Sbrisolona
The verb sbriciolare means to crumble, and that’s what you get with this Torta Sbrisolona recipe: A huge, crumbly polenta biscuit with almonds and cornmeal.
I’d never seen a crumble cake in Italy until I walked by the souvenir shops in Mantova and saw the local torta sbrisolona displayed in varying sizes. The verb sbriciolare means to crumble, and that’s what you get: A huge, crumbly polenta biscuit with almonds and cornmeal, but without the fruit filling I’d normally expect to find in this kind of context. Still, the biscuit has a nice crunch and an appealing taste of almonds with a hint of lemon. And I will definitely make it again as an supplement or alternative to the stable chocolate chip cookies.
Ingredients
100 g butter
100 g flour
100 g polenta flour/cornmeal
100 g sugar
100 g blanched almonds
1 egg yolk
Zest of 1 lemon
Preparation
Rub polenta flour or cornmeal, flour and sugar with butter till it resembles bread crumbs.
Chop the almonds coarsely, grate the lemon zest and add it to the crumble.
Use the egg yolk to bind the pastry together
Spread it out as a flat round disc on a sheet of baking paper
Bake at 160 C /320 F for 30 minutes
Torta sbrisolona should be broken with the hands and not cut with a knife
Other recipes based on polenta
Torta Sbrisolona is a specialty from Mantova and it’s mainly made from polenta
This looks awesome..Gotta buy some more milk..On my to do list. Thanks Regina
Wow. Love this local specialty in very few words you captured an entire world. Looks super delicious! I love learning something new. In Israel on out vacation I couldn’t stop eating polenta citrus cookies.
I love any food that has the word polenta in it. I’ll have t try these next week when I’m home.
I have always loved this Sbrisolona. Call it a dessert cake or a giant cookie. It is just a wonderful treat.
This is such a unique way to use up polenta! Gonna have to try this out soon =)
Very nice! I’m familiar with a similar recipe from Jack Bishop’s Italian Vegetarian Cookbook for cornmeal biscotti. It also has the cornmeal, butter and lemon zest but does not have the blanched almonds that are in your recipe. I’d like to try it with the almonds, thanks for the idea!
I am trying this for the first time, just finished baking & waiting for it to cool down before eating!
Thanks you for the feed-back. I love hearing from people trying my recipes and I hope it lived up to your expectations.