Italian sweets for Christmas: the recipe of Parrozzo from Abruzzo

Italian sweets are great! In Abruzzo (a central region of the country) we have many Christmas sweets. Among them, parrozzo: it’s a dome of almond dough covered by its dark chocolate frosting. It has been celebrated by Gabriele D’Annunzio, the most important italian poet and writer of the XXI century, who came from Pescara.

His friend Luigi D’Amico invented the parrozzo and D’Annunzio wrote in our dialect:

È tante ‘bbone stu parrozze nove che pare na pazzie de San Ciattè, c’avesse messe a su gran forne tè la terre lavorata da lu bbove, la terre grasse e lustre che se coce e che dovente a poche a poche chiù doce de qualunque cosa doce.

It means:

This new parrozzo is so good that it seems to be played by St. Cetteo [the holy protector of Pescara], as if He put into your big oven the soil ploughed by the oxen, the plenty and shiny soil that is cooking, becoming sweeter than any other sweet thing”.

Today it’s up to us, dear guest, to give you an easy recipe of the Christmas italian sweet called parrozzo.

How to make parrozzo abruzzese

The first thing we have to do is to get these ingredients. To make the dough we need:

6 eggs
150 g semolina
200 g chopped almonds
200 g sugar
half a cup of oil
2 spoons of almond liqueur
one grated lemon.

For the frosting, instead, 200g dark chocolate and 30g butter.

Let’s start now:

Break the eggs and divide the yolks and the egg whites. Now, let’s melt the yolks with sugar, then add all other ingredients: semolina, almonds, oil, liqueor and lemon;
Let’s go back to the white eggs and whip them. After that, let’s pour it onto the dough (pt 1);
We can put the whole dough into the typical Abruzzo’s dome form, that we’ve already buttered and floured. Finally into the oven: about 50 minutes, 160°C;
We also have to prepare the frosting. Melt the chocolate and the butter into a pot. Now we can pour it on the top of the parrozzo’s dome, using a palette knife to cover the whole surface;
Before we serve this amazing cake, it has to cool!

If you can’t make parrozzo or other italian sweets on your own but you’re in Abruzzo now

Can’t you make parrozzo or any other italian sweets for Christmas on your own? Don’t worry. If you are spending your Holidays in Abruzzo you can buy them in many shops.

In the village of Silvi Paese, our shop Generi Diversi has been working since 1927 (by chance, in the same years Luigi D’Amico opened “Il ritrovo del Parrozzo” in Pescara). On the wall of our shop you can still read the original license. This place is actually a part of the story of Silvi.

Here you’ll also find other sweets from Abruzzo and some souvenir to buy for your family: confetti, typical sweets and liquor as genziana or ratafia.

And other italian sweets such as torrone, panettone and pandoro too.

Come and visit us. We’re in corso Umberto I, in the village of Silvi Paese.

While we wait for you to come, enjoy some pics of the Generi Diversi shop decorated for Christmas.

Can’t wait to tell you the story of this little typical shop!