This is the most emblematic of Corsican dry cakes. You will find it very easily during your holidays in Corsica, sometimes in more or less outlandish « tourist » versions (vanilla, chestnut, or even chocolate!), quite often of rather ordinary quality with unidentified ingredients (unspecified vegetable fat), but with a little luck or research, you can find good ones, even excellent ones, mainly from artisan bakers and pastry chefs. There are as many recipes as there are micro-regions, or even families, and you will also read about various cooking methods.
For a bowl of Canistrelli:
1 Mix flour, sugar, salt, aniseed (if using seeds) and baking powder in a bowl and make a well in the centre.
2 Pour oil and wine into this well (and pastis if you are not using aniseed grains).
3 Mix with your fingertips, quickly and above all without kneading.
4 Spread the dough by hand with the palm of your hand to a thickness of about 2 cm (a rolling pin is not essential but preferable), sprinkle finely with crystal sugar and press the grains onto the dough with the palm of your hand.
5 Cut with a knife into pieces of about 6 cm in length (make slightly irregular cuts to stay true to tradition: see the photo, historically canistrelli were often cut in a V shape) and place them slightly apart on a baking sheet with the usual precautions.
6 Bake for approximately 40 minutes in a preheated moderate oven (thermostat 5/150 °C (300°F)): they should be golden brown. As the cooking aroma spreads through the kitchen, you will be transported closer to the island.
7 Enjoy dipped in a glass of well-chilled Corsican Muscat wine or with coffee in the afternoon. These canistrelli keep very well in a dry tin.
A good regional recipe, if you find green anise it will be a plus. In some old recipes, the sugar in the dough was replaced by mountain honey and the canistrelli were moistened with milk before baking.
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