Category:
Fresh pastries and bakery, biscuit, confectionary and pastry products;

1. Product name:
Schiaccia pasquale con uccellini di San Piero

2. Other names:

3. Short product description:
Schiaccia pasquale is a baked product made from bread dough and aniseed. It has a very unique shape made from a circular base divided into 4 or 5 slices (depending on the size) and decorated with between 5 and 13 handmade birds, depending again on whether it’s a small or large cake. After being baked, the product has a light golden colour and hard texture. Inside, it’s white and enriched with aniseed. It has the intense flavour and aroma of aniseed. The small cake weighs 500g and the large one 1kg. It’s packaged in plastic or paper grocery bags.

4. Production area:
San Piero in Campo – Elba Island.

5. Production status:

6. Production process:
The ingredients – “00” flour, water, salt, fresh yeast and aniseed – are mixed in an electric mixer until everything comes together. 1.2kg of dough is used to make the big cake and 600g for the small one. A disk of dough is shaped into a base for the decorations. Before being decorated, the base is cut into 8-10 slices. The slices are made so the centre of the cake remains intact. The slices are then overlapped to make 4 slices for the small cake and 5 for the larger one. The elaborate bird decorations are then prepared by hand (with the same dough). With the help of toothed pliers, the body, fanned tail and head with small crest and beak are shaped. The birds are arranged in the centre of the disk and fixed in place with toothpicks. It’s baked in the oven for an hour at 220°C. Once cooked, the product is sold.

7. Materials, equipment and premises used for production:
Electric mixer, work surface, wooden boards for the schiaccia before its baked, iron toothed pliers for making the birds, wooden or steel peel for baking.

8. Notes on traditionalism, homogeneity of spread and persistence of production rules over time:
Schiaccia Pasquale con gli uccellini di San Piero has old roots. It has always been made for the Easter holidays and only ever in the town of San Piero. The skill required to prepare this product and the method used to make the decorations has been handed down the generations. Oral histories can trace the product back at least 100 years, when housewives prepared it in the home.
It’s tradition to bless the schiaccia during the Easter Sunday mass.

9. Production:
Only one bakery in San Piero prepares this product and makes 500 pieces during holy week, all of which are sold at a local level.