Having told you about typical Roman sweets, we want to introduce you to those from Frascati. Frascati is a small town to discover a short distance from Rome, also reachable by train (if you don’t like driving).
The Pupazza frascatana
The best-known sweet in Frascati is the “pupazza frascatana”: a traditional cookie symbolizing fertility and abundance, very much linked to the local wine and farming culture.
This shortbread cookie has a particolate shape: it represents a pupazza with three breasts ( wine would come out of one and milk from the others). The figure is linked to the “mammana,” a wet nurse who also nursed with wine to soothe children during the grape harvest (Frascati boasts large vineyards).
Pupazza is prepared with simple and genuine ingredients such as 00 flour, extra virgin olive oil, wildflower honey, and citrus flavors such as orange. It is decorated with coffee beans representing eyes and mouth and is made year-round in local bakeries with various interpretations of the recipe.
Where to find it: at Antico Forno Molinari; Il Fornaio (known as the Forno di via dell’Olmo); Il Fornaretto di Amadei.
The tozzetti
Tozzetti are crisp, rustic cookies typical of the Lazio tradition, similar to Tuscan cantucci but made mainly with toasted hazelnuts instead of almonds. In Frascati they are also found with chocolate and are very good (especially at breakfast with a nice cup of milk).
They are made with eggs, sugar, flour (or semolina), butter (or extra virgin olive oil), toasted hazelnuts or chocolate, yeast and flavorings such as lemon zest. Often a liqueur such as amaretto or rum is added for flavoring.
Where to find them: in the various bakeries in Frascati, such as Il Fornaio or at Ceralli’s.
Donuts with wine
Ciambelle con il vino (donuts with wine), typical of Frascati, are traditional peasant dry sweets made with a few simple ingredients: 00 flour, sugar, extra virgin olive oil, and, of course, Frascati white wine. They were usually eaten as dessert in taverns.
Frascati wine donuts are crispy on the outside and slightly crumbly.
Where to find them: in Frascati’s various bakeries such as Il Fornaio, Ceralli and the Antico forno fratelli Senzacqua.