SWEET DOVES AND CHOCOLATE EGGS

For those who are looking for quality, and an image that isn't mass-produced and industrial, and who take credit for it, on Youliguria you can find a list and information on the bakeries and artisan workshops that produce traditional Easter sweets

SWEET DOVES AND CHOCOLATE EGGS

Dove or chocolate egg? Or both? A few years ago, a Coldiretti research study claimed that the consumption of Colomba (sweet dove), the traditional cake that is the counterpart to Christmas panettone, based on a marketing idea of the Milanese manufacturer Motta in 1930, with the same ingredients., won out, but just slightly. In fact, the tradition of the Easter dove is very old: the most accredited legend dates it back to the Lombard period and the siege of Pavia in the second half of the 500s by King Alboin that ended at Easter. Peace was sealed with the gift to the king of a cake in the shape of a dove. In many cases, families still make a sweet bread at Easter that is shaped like the bird symbolising peace and is enriched with three hard-boiled eggs coloured with herbs and flowers placed in place of the head and wings. In the Ligurian tradition, the dough today is similar to pandolce, it takes at least three days to knead, and the butter's mixing function is replaced with extra virgin olive oil from the Riviera.

The other Easter symbol in the gifts and tables of the feast is the egg, sweet or salted, considered in all cultures a symbol of life and associated in Christianity with the Resurrection of Christ. The salted one, often produced in the family or in the bakery next door, in Liguria is called 'cavagnetto', a small basket of sweet pastry with a coloured hard-boiled egg in the centre, held in place by other pastry and baked in the oven. The origin of the chocolate egg dates back to the Sun King, Louis XIV, who in the early 18th century had it created by his court cook as a gift to replace the 'symbolic' gold and silver ones. With chocolate, the quantum leap was made at the beginning of the 20th century (some say in Holland, some in England, some in Turin) with the creation of concave moulds that made it possible to better consume the chocolate and put a small gift inside.

So mass and industrial production also started, which, however, did not outclass the goodness of the eggs produced by the artisan chocolatiers and provided them with the possibility of customising the surprises inside.

A wide selection of Ligurian artisans producing doves, chocolate eggs and other traditional sweets, selected by the Regione Liguria quality label, are on the Youliguria.it platform