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Margheritine di Stresa, or literally translated, Little Daisies from Stresa, are divine, melt-in-your-mouth, can’t-stop-eating-them cookies. Like the name says, these cookies are typical of Stresa, a picturesque and renowned town along the western shores of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy.
Originally created in 1857 by Italian pastry chef Pietro Antonio Bolongaro, the cookies are named after princess Margherita, as they were presented to her on the occasion of her First Communion. The princess later married Umberto di Savoia, and thus became the first queen of Italy. This, by the way, is the same Queen Margherita for whom the first pizza Margherita was created in Naples.
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There are about three or four types of cookies which are my top favorites, and these margheritine are in that top tier. The others being, in no particular order of preference: Palmiers, Madeleines and Vanillekipferl. A few more follow very closely, and I will share them all by and by, as I have recently been caught in a cookie baking riptide.
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These days, several patisseries in the town of Stresa offer these cookies, each boasting to have the best. Of course, the cookies are known and also offered by other patisseries in Northern Italy, each with their own version. My absolute favorites are from Il Bar Gigi, a bar, patisserie & restaurant in Stresa just a short block from the lakeshore.
As you an imagine, those are the ones I have tried to recreate, and I think I have done quite well. The ingredients are listed by law, of course, yet the trick is figuring out the amount balance for each. A quick search around the web yielded three separate sources that shared the exact same recipe. I thought that would be a good place to start. The recipe came close, but not really.
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The result was a cookie that was a bit too dry and lacking in something: a richness, a “oh-my-this-is-so-divine” sigh of blissful satisfaction when popping it into my mouth. So I tweaked, and I tweaked, first this ingredient, then that, then the size, then the baking temperature…. Essentially I recreated the whole recipe until finally I reached that texture and flavor I remembered.
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This recipe has become part of my Curated Recipes collection and is available for purchase as a beautifully designed downloadable PDF file at the links below.
Thank you for supporting this blog and enjoy baking!
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