Sbrisolona
A cake from Mantua whose name comes from brisa, a crumb. By tradition it is never cut but broken apart by hand, and that is intended. It has no egg as a binder beyond two yolks, and the mixture is never kneaded — the crumbs are scattered loosely into the tin without pressing. What any other recipe would call a mistake is here the only correct method.
Your own work in that: 10 min.
- Crumbs 15 min
- Filling the tin 10 min
- Baking 40 min
- Cooling 60 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneMix the three flours with sugar
Combine the plain flour, cornmeal and ground almonds with the sugar, salt and lemon zest. The cornmeal is the crucial part — it gives the characteristic sandy shortness that wheat flour alone never achieves.
Ingredients: 200 g plain flour · 200 g cornmeal · 100 g ground almonds · 200 g sugar · 200 g butter · 2 pcs egg yolks · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract · ½ tsp salt
Rub in the cold butter
Add the cold cubed butter and rub it in with your fingers until you have uneven crumbs — from the size of a grain of rice to a hazelnut. The unevenness is the aim: different crumb sizes give different degrees of crispness in the baked cake.
Ingredients: 200 g plain flour · 200 g cornmeal · 100 g ground almonds · 200 g sugar · 200 g butter · 2 pcs egg yolks · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract · ½ tsp salt
Crumbs from rice to hazelnut — uneven on purpose.Add the yolks and vanilla without kneading
Beat the yolks with the vanilla and stir them in with a fork, not your hands, just to distribute them. Kneading would bind the mixture into dough, and sbrisolona would bake as a hard slab rather than a crumbling sheet.
Ingredients: 200 g plain flour · 200 g cornmeal · 100 g ground almonds · 200 g sugar · 200 g butter · 2 pcs egg yolks · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract · ½ tsp salt
Fold in the whole almonds
Add the whole skin-on almonds and mix. Whole, not chopped — almonds protruding from the cake are sbrisolona's signature, and when you break it they provide the resistance that sets the fracture lines.
Ingredients: 150 g almonds · 20 g icing sugar
Scatter the crumbs loosely into the tin
Heat the oven to 170°C. Scatter the crumbs into a lined 28–30 cm springform or tart tin, spread them level and absolutely do not press. The layer should be loose and uneven, 2–2.5 cm deep; in a smaller tin it ends up too thick and stays underbaked in the middle. Pressed, it compacts into a slab and loses all its shortness.
Ingredients: 200 g plain flour · 200 g cornmeal · 100 g ground almonds · 200 g sugar · 200 g butter · 2 pcs egg yolks · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract · ½ tsp salt
Loose and unpressed — the one rule of this cake.Bake 40 minutes to golden
Bake 40 minutes at 170°C, until evenly golden with darker edges. The cake stays flat — it does not rise, having neither raising agent nor beaten-in air.
Ingredients: 200 g plain flour · 200 g cornmeal · 100 g ground almonds · 200 g sugar · 200 g butter · 2 pcs egg yolks · 1 pcs lemon · 1 tsp vanilla extract · ½ tsp salt
Cool in the tin and break by hand
Cool completely in the tin, about an hour — hot sbrisolona collapses if you try to lift it. Once cold, break it into irregular pieces with your hands, never a knife. Dust with icing sugar.
Ingredients: 150 g almonds · 20 g icing sugar
Broken by hand — a knife would reduce it to crumbs.
Before you start
Serve it with wine
In Mantua sbrisolona is served at the end of a meal, often with a glass of grappa or a sweet dessert wine to dip the pieces into. The cake is dry by nature, and that dryness is no fault — it is exactly why it takes so well to dipping.
The ratio of three flours
Sbrisolona is sometimes called the "three cups cake" (torta delle tre tazze): one measure each of plain flour, cornmeal and sugar. The proportions can shift — more cornmeal gives a sandier cake, more wheat flour a denser one.
Two weeks in a tin
With no liquid and barely any egg, sbrisolona doesn't go stale like an ordinary cake: it keeps for up to two weeks in an airtight tin. After a few days it tastes just as good as on the first.
