Warm Tuscan bomboloni and a cappuccino

It all began with a hand that came into a picture frame. Until then my pictures of breakfast were always the same: I would shoot them from above, a cup of tea or coffee, a little plate, some fresh fruit, a yoghurt, sometimes a slice of a homely cake. I would stand perched on a chair and I would snap my picture in the soft morning light. I would enjoy my breakfast alone, sometimes in silence, reading a book or more often already checking emails demanding an answer.

Living in the countryside influenced my perception of holiday breakfast, too. It would be slower, I would savour the calm hours, stretched in a corner of sunshine as a cat, but on my table there would be almost the same unchanged elements: a toast with jam, a cappuccino if dad was around, perhaps an orange juice. But the picture was always the same.

Then a hand entered the frame.

When our friendship turned into that warm feeling that now makes us talk with a plural, I found also a new habit: breakfast in town, in Florence. During working days nothing changed except for one more mug and one more plate on the table, matched by sleepy chats of two people slowly coming to life. But Sunday was a special day, our day to invent. We would often treat ourselves with a breakfast in a bar.

It was so unusual for me. I slowly abandoned the anxiety of not knowing how to deal with all that breakfast choice in the glittering counter of a city bar and found my favourite: a macchiato, a cappuccino sometimes, and a warm Tuscan bombolone.

A warm bombolone, filled to the brim with thick Italian custard, is one my childhood fondest memories: it was the protagonist of gleeful breakfasts with my cousin Margherita during our summer holidays at the seaside. More recently, bomboloni became the symbol of the excitement to stay out till late with my friends, when the evenings ended with a hot bombolone and a sprinkling of sugar on my lips: I would lick it up before calling it a day.

During our breakfast at the bar, I would sit at the table waiting for him. After a few minutes Tommaso would reach me bringing the bomboloni, still warm and irresistible with those grains of sugar, then he would bring the two cups of cappuccino, walking slowly not to spill the milk foam. I could not help, I had to take a picture of that breakfast, too. I would search for the right soft light, then I would style cups and bomboloni in a captivating composition. Sometimes I would move his hand, asking him to hold the cup, then I would quickly snap a photo.

Looking back at those first pictures I realized that a hand was now into the frame, a tangible metaphor of how the man who lent his hand to my breakfast pictures was now finally into my life.

After a year and a half, we still treat ourselves with a breakfast at the bar once in a while, a small luxury that has become a habit for the city days. So many loving memories in a plump ball of fried dough.

Bomboloni alla crema

Here is the recipe for the bomboloni made with sourdough starter. This is the Tuscan version of a sweet treat diffused and loved throughout Italy: so no eggs or cream in the ingredient list, just a simple and poorer dough that produces a soft ball of fried goodness, which you can fill with jam, custard or chocolate, or even leave empty and sprinkle with extra sugar.

I chose to knead the dough by hand, I took an hour and I loved to be wrapped by the sweet butter aroma, living the recipe turn after turn, ingredient after ingredient. You can obviously opt for a stand mixer and halve the kneading time. The outcome? you will reach more quickly the final moment, when you’ll lick the sugar from your lips.

The recipe for the Tuscan bomboloni is inspired by the one told by Giovanni Righi Parenti in his book, La Cucina Toscana, adapted to the use sourdough starter instead of brewer’s yeast.

Today I told you a special story to introduce Storie di Cucina, the new book series which will be published in Italy by Corriere della Sera. A book a week, some of the most inspiring food writers, from Laurie Colwin, for the fist time translated in Italian, to Ruth Reichl, M.K. Fisher, Joanne Harris Michael Pollan and Isabel Allende.

For those who love a good story, for those who love food, these books are highly unmissable. 

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A Tuscan Christmas lunch – panforte, a spicy cake from Siena Chocolate and almond rolls. Happy birthday Mum! Ricciarelli, Siena’s almond cookies Tuscan Nutella and meringue tart