cantucci

The word cantucci comes from the Tuscan canto, meaning corner or edge, and the earliest uses referred to a small piece cut from the corner of a loaf. By the 17th century, Amadio Baldanzi of Prato had documented a recipe for biscuits made with almonds and baked twice, hard enough to keep without spoiling. The name described the cut: these were edged pieces, angled slices taken from a log-shaped dough.

Cantucci became associated with Tuscany specifically through the regional habit of pairing them with Vin Santo, the sweet fortified wine made from dried Trebbiano and Malvasia grapes. The practice of dunking the hard biscuits in wine softened them and extended the drinking ritual into something that functioned as dessert. Bartolomeo Scappi, cook to Pope Pius V, described similar twice-baked loaves in his 1570 Opera, though the specific Tuscan form was still developing.

In the 19th century, Antonio Mattei of Prato became the defining commercial producer and stripped the recipe back to its essentials: flour, sugar, eggs, pine nuts, and almonds, no fat added. His shop on Via Ricasoli in Prato opened in 1858 and still operates today under his name. The blue-and-white paper wrapping Mattei established for his cantucci remains essentially unchanged.

Cantucci and cantuccini are sometimes used interchangeably, but in Tuscany the larger, plainer biscuit is cantucci and the smaller, more delicate form is cantuccini. The distinction is not always maintained outside the region, and the two names have converged in export markets to mean the same thing. Both trace to the same corner cut that defined the original loaf.