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The dish
What celli ripieni are
Christmas biscuits with grape jam.
Celli ripieni are biscuits made with a simple pastry of flour, extra virgin olive oil and white wine, without eggs or butter, filled with scrucchiata: a thick jam made from the pulp and skins of Montepulciano grapes.
Toasted almonds and walnuts, citrus zest, cinnamon and often a little dark chocolate go into the filling. The name comes from the shape: closed and pinched, they look like little birds, «celli» in dialect.
What you need
Ingredients
Makes about 30 biscuits.
For the pastry
- 500 g plain flour
- 140 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 140 ml dry white wine
- 50 g sugar
- A pinch of salt
For the filling
- 300 g scrucchiata (or thick grape jam)
- 100 g toasted chopped almonds
- 50 g chopped walnuts
- 50 g chopped dark chocolate
- Grated zest of one orange
- Half a teaspoon of cinnamon
To finish
- Icing sugar or caster sugar
Step by step
Method
- Mix all the filling ingredients in a bowl: it should be a thick paste; if too soft, add a few crumbled dry biscuits.
- Knead the flour with the oil, wine, sugar and salt into a smooth, elastic pastry. Let it rest 30 minutes.
- Roll the pastry out thinly, about 2–3 mm, and cut 8 cm discs.
- Put a teaspoon of filling in the centre of each disc, fold into a half-moon and pinch the edges; then fold the tips to give the shape of a little bird.
- Bake on a lined tray at 180 °C for 20–25 minutes, until just golden.
- Dust with icing sugar once cold, or roll them in sugar straight from the oven.
From our home kitchen
Tips
- Scrucchiata is made in autumn at grape-harvest time; otherwise use a very thick grape or blackberry jam.
- Seal the edges well, or the filling will leak while baking.
- They keep for two weeks in a tin.
Note: the shape changes from village to village: in Ortona and on the coast celli are closed almost like a C, elsewhere like a little bird.
Gallery
Photos
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Tradition
History and trivia
Celli ripieni were born in farmhouses, where sweets were made with what was at hand: oil from the mill, wine from the cellar and the scrucchiata made during the grape harvest. They were the biscuits of Christmas and feast days.
Scrucchiata was cooked for hours in large copper pots: the pulp and skins of Montepulciano grapes became a dark, thick jam with no added sugar.
Did you know? in southern Abruzzo the same biscuits are also called «cill pijn», «filled birds».