This traditional ciambella of Imola is a recipe from San Domenico, a starred restaurant in the small Romagna town where I was born and raised. I could say it is a starred ciambella.
A few years ago, I wrote a cookbook with a journalist friend.
The book Presto ch’è pronto, written by a journalist friend and me was born as a community project. The idea was to donate the funds to the local Caritas Diocesana to help families in need. When I told Valentino Marcattilii and Max Mascia, chefs at San Domenico in Imola, two Michelin stars for almost 50 years, about the project, they made themselves available. They gave us a recipe contribution that enhanced the book, later published by my city’s publishing house.
This recipe is a tribute to my city, Imola, known by that name. And yes, even star chefs make simple pastry cakes like ciambella.
How many ciambella recipes exist?
More than eleven million content dedicated to the ciambella exist on the web.
As a child, I had one certainty: all ciambella that came out of the oven at home were good.
As an adult, I have found that ciambella cakes often have a boring taste, sometimes even an annoying texture. For instance, I consider disturbing chewy ciambella, perhaps because of a leavening problem, and those that turn to crumbs in the first bite. In this case, the cook probably used little liquid or fat, which helps hold the dough together when cooked. Small caveat: distinguish the crispy bite, associated with copious crumb production, from the disaster I just described.
But how do you recognize a boring ciambella from an amazing one?
From the endless combinations of flour, sugar, milk, and eggs come ciambella, which are similar but different.
If there was someone who, when you were a child, made this cake for you, recover that recipe. The best ciambella is the one that cradles, raises, and educates your palate.
Grandma Sara used to make many different kinds of ciambella.
Of course, it is the classic ciambella romagnola without the hole in the middle. Some were soft and with ricotta or yogurt or mascarpone in the dough. Others had such firm dough that they fit in the oven without needing a mold. Belonging to this kind is the one filled with Nutella, which I used to eat in the summer and which we used to buy in the bakery in the villages of Romagna, where we went to the seaside on vacation. Or the dry one to accompany the sweet wine grandma made in summer and winter when guests were there.
The ciambella is a simple dessert, but the adjective should be understood.
Simple does not mean mixing with little grace and no love of the ingredients in a bowl. It does not mean taking a recipe, maybe a good recipe, and eliminating sugar and butter to make it dull and the same as a thousand other ciambelle, all without taste.
Make a good ciambella, taste it, and then, if you like, come back here in the comments to tell me if you noticed the difference.
The traditional ciambella of Imola
This recipe has the characteristics that good ciambella must have for me: it comes out of the oven fragrant, sustains the cut smoothly, and, upon tasting, takes you back to the kitchen of when you were a child. All this for a few euros. Power of (good) cooking. I’ll leave you with a few cooking notes to keep in mind:
- remove butter from the refrigerator several hours before using it: butter softened out of the fridge is called creamy;
- use granulated sugar; the brown sugar is wrong for making this buttercream;
- mix the butter with the sugar until it becomes a cream, and then incorporate one ingredient at a time;
- when the ciambella is cooked, do not rush to remove the cake from the mold. Let it cool completely, so it is best to bake it the day before consuming it. After baking, the ciambella of Imola needs some rest; otherwise, whether soft or dry, it is likely to break;
- there are no flavorings in this ciambella. And since that is one of its characteristics, don’t change it.
Buona cucina, Monica
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Traditional ciambella of Imola
Equipment
- 24x11cm rectangular mold
Ingredients
- 80 g of butter softened out of the refrigerator
- 150 g of granulated sugar no brown sugar
- 130 g of whole eggs about 2 medium eggs
- 100 g of milk at room temperature
- 250 g of sifted 00 flour
- 10 g of baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
- sugar to decorate
Instructions
- Soften butter outside the refrigerator for a few hours before using it. Butter softened in this way is called "a pomata".
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (356F).
- Mix the butter with the sugar in a bowl using a fork or spoon first, then electric whips.
- Add the eggs and mix again with the whips.
- Then, add the sifted flour, mix, milk, baking powder, and salt.
- Grease with olive oil or butter a rectangular pound cake mold. Next, pour the mixture and use a spatula to even it out. Finally, brush the surface with some milk. It will form a thin crust on the surface of ciambella.
- Sprinkle with granulated sugar and bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until the doughnut is golden. You can also check the baking with a wooden toothpick; when it comes out dry, the cake is ready.
- Let cool before removing the doughnut from the mold.
- The ciambella will be fresh for several days; store it out of the refrigerator.
2 Comments
Jenifer
The ingredient list doesn’t mention yeast yet the directions say to add yeast but there isn’t a rise time.
Monica
Hi Jenifer, in Italy yeast is synonymous with baking powder. The ciamnbella does not need to rise like bread, when you have mixed the ingredients it goes directly into the oven. Buona cucina, Monica