In the heart of the Apulia, in a city in the province of Bari, called Bitonto, if you wander through the maze of narrow streets in the old town, passing the beautiful Romanesque cathedral, you will come across a monastery of the Cassinese Benedictine order.
A true architectural marvel, with rooms dating back to 1200, the monastery named after St. Mary of the Virgins, has been inhabited since 1525 by nuns who have chosen the cloistered life.
It is in this place that exudes spirituality and authenticity that the story goes that the pugliese bocconotto recipe, a typical dessert of this land, which differs from the Abruzzese dessert of Castel Frentano for its goat ricotta filling instead of chocolate.
The history of bocconotto in Abruzzo
Between history and legend, two tales are told about the bocconotto. The first takes us back to the late 18th century, that is, the time of the importation of chocolate and coffee. It seems that in a small town in Abruzzo, a maid prepared for her master, who had a sweet tooth, a pastry made with a shortbread in the shape of a coffee cup and filled with coffee and melted chocolate. When the master tasted it, he was so enraptured that he wanted to know the name of the delicacy. Taken aback, the woman replied that it was called "bocconotto" as it was gobbled up in one gulp.
Since the filling was too liquid, later it was also thought to make it thicker by adding almonds.
The Apulian legend of bocconotto
Another legend, however, has it that the bocconotto originated in the Murgia hinterland and is especially connected to peasant culture. In fact, it seems that bocconotto, due to its small size and the fact that it was kept for days, became the typical dessert of poor people.
The filling of the bocconotto
Depending on the location of origin, the bocconotto Has different fillings. If in Abruzzo the filling is made of chocolate, almonds and cinnamon, in the province of Bari is ricotta cheese, with the variation - for the city of Molfetta - of jam and dark chocolate, in Calabria the jam is bergamot marmalade and rum figs; in Matera, Basilicata, it is black cherries. And apparently there is a savory variant of the recipe as well.
The bitontine bocconotto: the ancient recipe of the benettines
Among all these variants, the typical bocconotto bitontine, which is traced back to the art of the Benedictine nuns of Bitonto, where the ancient recipe calls for a filling of ricotta cheese and little sugar.
No one can precisely date the recipe, which has so far managed to be passed down from generation to generation in a few Apulian families. Some date it to the 1700s; others claim it is even older.
The fact is that the bocconotto of Bitonto is now considered a delicacy among typical sweets, encapsulating the simplicity of the flavors and aromas of a generous and welcoming land.
Among the streets of the ancient city, even today, there is a "home" of bocconotto: a small store, the Boccabò, which produces this sweet following the original recipe, and especially on holidays and Sundays, citizens and visitors flock to this place to buy it.
Obviously, we will not have the recipe for Boccabò, and certainly over time this may have undergone variations and modifications, but it seems that the one that follows-supplied to us by an elderly bitontine confectionery maestra who does not want her identity revealed-is very close to the original recipe:
For the shortbread:
500 g flour
250 g butter
100 g sugar
3 egg yolks
For the filling:
1kg of cow or goat ricotta cheese
9 eggs
200 g sugar
Natural vanilla flavor
Grated zest of one lemon
When we asked the elderly woman what is the secret of preparing some bocconotti perfect, she replied, "No secrets that are not contained in skilled hands and passion for what you do."
Do you also want to learn how to make sweets typical of a region? Choose the pastry chef course by Italian Food Academy.
