Venice Recipes and Curiosities
from the Venetian Cuisine

I Baicoi

The Baicoli

Ingredients:

400 grs. of wheat flour 00

50 grs. of melted butter

50 grs. of caster sugar

one glass of milk

15 grs. of brewer´s yeast

Modus Operandi

Knead 50 grs of the wheat with the yeast dissolved in a little warm milk and let it stand until it doubles its volume.
Put the remaining flour, mixed with the sugar, in a cup, and knead it, first with the melted butter and then with the milk, just a little warm of course.

Join and amalgamate the previously leavened bread. Let the whole to leaven again in the switched off oven, together with a little pot of boiling water, for a little more than an hour.

Then divide the dough in 6 little chubby cylinders and put in the oven at 180° for about 15 minutes, but no more.

The half-cooked breads must rest on the plate inside oven paper for 24 hours. After that, slice them very thin and put them again in the oven to golden at about 200°.

I Baicoi

The Baicoli

They are the most famous Venetian Biscuits, widespreaded in the World by "Colussi" Trade Mark.
Thin and crisp, sweet but a very few, they are perfect for a sober tea, or used instead of spoonful to taste whipped cream, or dunked into warm chocolate (to offer chocolate at the guest was a sign of distinction in the Ancient Venezia, at less from the 17^th-18^th century, telling by the comedies of those times); the Baicoli Are also served as a support with sweet or liqueur-like wines.

Le confezioni di Baicoli "Colussi", Marca ormai emigrata in altre mani da quelle dei Colussi veneziani, riporta questa poesiola che penso quasi ogni bambino oggi almeo trentenne abbia imparato a memoria:

No gh’è a sto mondo no, più bel biscoto
Più fin, più dolse più lisiero e san
par mogiar ne la cicara o nel goto
Del baicolo nostro venessian.

Non c´è al mondo, no, più bel biscotto
più fine, dolce, leggero e sano
da intingere alla chicchera o nel gotto
del baicolo nostro veneziano.