Birraccioli
Chef Alessandro
Birra Salento’s “Birraccioli” are biscuits made with cocoa and beer that can be tasted as a dessert or paired with a “meditative” beer. Their intense flavor of cocoa and coffee, cinnamon notes and honey hints perfectly match with three of our creations.
Agricola ambrata: its caramel notes pleasingly pair with our “birraccioli”.
Beggia: Belgian style, amber-colored beer with a firm body and soft and long-lasting foam. It meets the most demanding palates and sweetly intertwines with our “birraccioli” whether if you want to have them at the end of a meal or separately, just like a sort of “meditation”.
’63 barrique: a beer aged in oak barrels. Its sweetness, given by chestnut honey marries with the strong flavour of “birraccioli”, making them very intriguing for the palate.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 kg of flour;
- 500 g (17.64 oz) of toasted almond grain;
- 400 g (14.11 oz) of sugar;
- 50 g (1.76 oz) bitter cocoa;
- 50 g (1.76 oz) of acacia honey;
- 100 g (3.53 oz) of extra virgin olive (EVO) oil;
- 4 eggs;
- 1 sachet of baking powder;
- 5 g (0.18 oz) of clove;
- 5 g (0.18 oz) of cinnamon; (clove and cinnamon milled together)
- 10 g (0.35 oz) of ground coffee;
- 50 ml (1.69 oz) of Beggia beer;
PROCEDURE
Make a “mountain” with the flour and create a well. Start putting the ingredients inside the hole: eggs, sugar, baking powder, oil, honey, cinnamon and clove, ground coffee, sifted bitter cocoa, almond grain and, slowly, beer. After kneading, make the dough rest in the fridge for 60 minutes, covered by a cling film.
After the time necessary, cut the dough into diamond shapes and bake for 30 minutes in a static oven preheated to 180° C (356° F). Once they have cooled, you can glaze them. Glazing is an optional step when making our “birraccioli” because they do not need any external glazing to be enjoyed at their best and paired with our beer choices.
For the glazing:
In a saucepan, let a glass of beer evaporate together with sugar and cinnamon. In another saucepan, mix 500 g (17.64 oz) of sugar and 200 g (7.06 oz) of sifted bitter cocoa. Place it on the stove and blend gradually adding a half glass of beer. Once the mixture melts, dip the “birraccioli” into the glaze and let the excess of glaze drain off.
