Sweet made of toasted almonds whole and in pieces, combined with caramelized sugar; it is one of the 5 De.Co (Denominazione Comunale di Origine) products certified in Bobbio (Piacenza) in 2019.
The almond brittle is a dessert, to which skilful hands give the shape of a basket, it is still today the Christmas dessert par excellence. The almonds, peeled and cut into strips, were traditionally mixed with sugar in a copper pot, then the brittle was shaped with the help of a lemon.
The ancient recipe used a higher quantity of almonds compared to sugar, at that time more expensive. Today the proportions are often changed in order to allow the realization of more complex artistic creations.
The brittle could not be missed even at weddings: baskets of different sizes were stacked one on top of the other, with a convex shape towards the top, from the biggest to the smallest, in order to form a sweet composition that “substituted” the wedding cake. Almonds were also used to make “simple” sugared almonds: these were unpeeled almonds covered with coarse grains of sugar (praline).