Sbrisolona

When I leafed through Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery for the first time, this was one of the recipes that really caught my eye. It was something I had never heard of, but it sounded delicious.

Sbrisolona is an Italian dessert, and it is basically a large cookie made from a crumble-toping-like dough. Part of the dough is pressed into the pan and part is sprinkled on top. What could be better than an entire pan of nothing but crumble?!

When I was trying to decide what to bake the other night, this is what came to mind. Though when I went to gather my ingredients for Nancy's version, I found I was missing a few. So I took to the internet. I found a recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, and made a few alterations to it.

I loved this so much. Delicate and crumbly, yet satisfying and very rustic. Fun to break into asymmetrical pieces, and highly addictive. So many possibilities for different flavor combinations, this recipe is definitely a winner. The fact that it takes about 10 minutes to put together makes it even better. I will definitely be making this again.

Here is my version:

Sbrisolona

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook via Epicurious

14 tablespoons of butter, browned and cooled slightly

1 3/4 cups unbleached white flour

1 3/4 cups (about 5 ounces) pecans, finely ground

3/4 cup palm sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup finely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 10 inch spring-form pan. Combine all ingredients except chopped pecans in medium sized bowl. With your hands, toss everything together until dry ingredients are all moistened. Press 3/4 of mixture into spring-form pan. Crumble remaining mixture evenly on top. If your dough is too warm to crumble, place it in the freezer for a couple of minutes until it firms up. Bake at 35o for 25 minutes, then reduce temperature to 300 and bake for an additional 10 minutes until fairly dry and slightly darkened. Place on wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove the sides of pan and break Sbrisolona into pieces - whatever size you want. Enjoy!