Perfecting Nonna's Italian Roll Recipe

[Random]

Hi! I'm trying to help my dad with a this recipe. My grandmother used to make it for him. He tracked down an old Italian lady from his neighborhood who told him this is the same recipe his mother used. We tried making them just once so far. They turned out hard as a rock. I may not have used enough water?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

These are not rolls. There’s no yeast and by proportion very little chemical leavening in the form of baking powder. This is a type of biscuit. Sugar is it tenderizer. This recipe only has about 29% sugar. With yeast, and so little sugar and baking powder, this is not going to be a light tender biscuit by any means.

I attended culinary program in Italy and I did not come across a biscuit like this, so I can’t be much help.

Lard is not a commonly used ingredient in Italian baking. So I do not think you’ll find a similar recipe on an Italian baking site. Your best bet is to look for southern biscuit recipes to figure out how much water to add. Of course southern biscuit recipe will use butter milk or milk, so just substitute water. Then copy the mixing and baking method. A lot of southern biscuit recipes are made with lard, so you should be able to find a recipe with similar ingredients to use as a guide.

I would recommend you half the recipe while you experiment. 3 pounds of flour is an awful lot of flour to waste.

 

[Random]

Norcalbaker59, thank you for the reply. It seems this is not the recipe my dad was looking for.