Cantuccini La Mattonella – 250g

Cantuccini La Mattonella from Prato in the blue bag

Cantuccini La Mattonella are the Biscotti di Prato by Antonio Mattei, baked from five ingredients with unpeeled almonds and pine nuts. No butter, no yeast, no flavorings. Each bag is hand-filled and tied with a string.

Cantuccini La Mattonella are the almond biscuits with which the baker Antonio Mattei started in Prato in 1858 and which continue to define Tuscany to this day. 250 grams come to you in the blue paper bag, folded over at the top, tied by hand, and finished with a paper tag simply labeled Biscotti di Prato.

The biscuits owe their nickname to an old dictionary. In 1915, Policarpo Petrocchi listed "mattonella" as a brick-shaped pastry, and because the Pratesi called their bakery that anyway, the name stuck to the biscuits. La Mattonella, the little brick – a nickname that has made it all the way onto the packaging.

The 250-gram bag is the perfect size for getting to know them and, at the same time, the one that makes the most beautiful gift. No ribbon, no plastic, no little window: just paper, string, and a tag. That is enough.

Crunchy, hearty, authentic

These cantuccini break dry and loud, and in the break, you can see why: unpeeled almonds, whole pine nuts, and a light, firm dough in between.

The almond content is 20 percent; the brown skin remains on, bringing that slightly bitter note that peeled almonds lose. There is no butter in the dough, and no other fat added – the richness you taste comes solely from the nuts. That is why they stay crunchy for so long, and that is why the second biscuit tastes just as clean as the first.

They are sweet, but not cloyingly so. The sugar supports the almond instead of covering it up – a biscuit that works in the mouth rather than melting away. Anyone who only knows cantuccini from the supermarket shelf will hear the difference with the very first bite.

With espresso, dessert wine, or a long evening

In Prato, they dip them in Vin Santo until the edge softens. This is the classic way, and it works with any dessert wine.

They go just as well with an espresso after a meal as they do alongside a mild grappa from Trentino – almond pairs well with brandy. And if one bag gets to be too small for the afternoon, the large 500-gram bag is waiting nearby.

It is best to use a tin for storage, because while the paper bag keeps the biscuit wonderfully dry, it is not as easy to retie nicely after opening. For leftovers, if there are any, there are two ways: coarsely chopped over vanilla ice cream or crumbled into a tiramisu base.

Five ingredients and an oven in Via Ricasoli

Wheat flour, sugar, free-range eggs, almonds, pine nuts. That is all there is on the ingredient list, and that is all there was in 1858.

The dough goes into the oven as oblong filoncini at 180 to 190 degrees for a good twenty minutes and is then cut diagonally into two-centimeter-wide pieces – hence the pointed shape. Baking still takes place in the historic laboratory in the center of Prato, now in the fourth generation, just as Francesco, Marcella, Elisabetta, and Letizia Pandolfini inherited it from their father, Paolo.

Because there are no preservatives used, Cantuccini La Mattonella have a shelf life of three months from the day of baking. You can find more about the house and its 19th-century awards at Antonio Mattei, and other classics in our sweet biscuits section. A biscuit made from five ingredients, unchanged since 1858. Remarkable.