Fiadone Recipe Corsican Corsican Traditional Bush and Lemon

Fiadone is the traditional Corsican cake with iconic sheep cheese brocciu, Corsican bush, and lemon.

I give you the recipe The real traditional fiadone recipe as it was given by a little Corsican grandmother.
It is basically a kind of lemon cheesecake where all the ingredients are quickly mixed before cooking them for a short half hour. Ultra easy and fast.

And as we do not always easily find the Brocciu, which composes it, I offer you A variant to be done all year round with bush or ricotta. Sacrilege will say some, but we are there in adaptation for good Corsican cuisine for a delicious homemade dessert.

The real Fiadone Recipe learned from a Corsican grandmother

I give you the recipe here given by A little grandmother met in the small village of Lumio next to Calvi. She was sitting in front of her door, with her cats.
I complimented it on the color of his house and there a magical moment took place. Her face enlightened, she thanked me and invited me to her house which was just a large room devoted a bit like a cellar with a kitchen at the bottom.
She offered me cookies that she had just prepared and we started talking about cooking.

This is where she showed me His kitchen booka Clairefontaine spiral notebook, and gave me its family recipe from Fiadone.
A sweet moment of sharing and this mention on the cover of the notebook, I love:

“Cooking and pastry recipes written by Maman and Yorda. Varied recipes for Corsica and France. Treasures of knowing that we bring us back to the blessed time of the history of our life and our family. What happiness!”

It is not very different from everything you find on the internet but I admit that it checks for me all the boxes of an authentic and traditional recipe.
She is finally very close to the Fidiardon’s recipe from François-Régis Gaudry’s grandmother, with a little less sugar and many more lemon zest or in Julie Andrieu’s show.

How to make a perfect fiadone

For an authentic fiadone, there are actually few ingredients. You will see that the real recipe is fast and simple.

You need:

• Corsican cheese Brocciu (that you can replace with ricotta or bush) I explain all this just after
• eggs
• sugar (white or red)
• citrus zest. Generally lemon zest.

And that’s it. No flourit is therefore A gluten -free recipea little between a blank and a cake. A kind of Corsican cheesecake.

The addition of fruit liqueur or lemon juice is optional. You do not use in the traditional recipe no pie dough although you sometimes find in the bakeries of the fiadones cooked on a dough.

Ideally Butter and add sugar to your mold As on the step by step of these photos, it will form a pretty caramelized crust at the bottom and at the edges of the Fiadone.

The ingredients are mixed as for a flan device All together in a bowl or a bowl. Above all, do not use a robot or thermomix. We want to keep texture. Crush the brocciu to the fork then add the other ingredients and mixes to the fork still. It does not matter if there are still small pieces not mixed with cheese and if your preparation is not completely homogeneous.

Some separate the whites from the yolks to mount the egg whites for a more frothy result. This is not the version of my little Corsican grandmother.

And then we Cook this cheese cake in the oven simply, about thirty minutes. It does not matter if your fiadone is a little cracked on the top, it’s even a good sign. We want it to have a golden golden color and a crust a bit caramelized. Well mine was a little forgotten in the oven on the day of my photos so a little too cooked. Sorry.

Finally let cool and Serve warm or cold.

The AOP Brocciu

Brocciu is an emblematic cheese of Corsican gastronomy Made from whey, wheymainly sheep, and to a lesser extent of goat. This is what remains after the manufacture of cheese.
So a zero waste food which allows you to reuse and avoid throwing this whey which is very rich in protein.

The manufacturing process: Lactrum is first heated to 35 ° C and saltyThen 15% whole fresh milk is added And everything is then heated to a temperature of 80-90 ° Cclose to boiling but without boiling, until a creamy foam is formed on the surface.
This foam is recovered by hand and placed Using a utensil called the “shovel” In the faisselle moldssmall holey baskets. This hand handling guarantees a flexible and not too dense texture.

It takes 11 liters of sheep milk to make 1 kilo of brocciu, or 5.5 liters for this fiadone!

Brocciu is generally considered a fresh cheese (fresh brocciu) but it can be offered refined and called Brocciu Passu.

The winter manufacturing period at the beginning of summer follows the sheep’s lactation cycle and is strictly governed by the AOP rules.
Brocciu has a flexible and soft texture, a typical smell of small milk and a typical taste of the sheep, soft and slightly tangy.

The legend of Brocciu: I read several things.
– The first says that It was Solomon who would have transmitted the recipe for manufacturing the brocciu to the Corsican shepherds.
– Another says thatA cruel ogre that terrorized the inhabitants and flew the sheep lived in the “Casa di l’Ucru” (which can be translated by the Ogre house). The ogre was captured by the shepherds and in an attempt to plead its cause and to be picked up revealed their secret recipe for Brocciu. The Brocciu Fu adopted by the shepherds, the ogre was not, however, spared.

The Brocciu obtained its AOC in 1983 and its AOP, a protected designation of origin in 2003.
The poet Emile Bergerat wrote in the 19th century “who did not taste – the Brocciu – does not know the island”

What to replace the brocciu in the fiadone

• By bush, Provençal cheese, which is however a little dry and firm, less creamy than the Brocciu
• By ricotta. It works very well. To be tested throughout the year when you want to make this cake and you do not have access to Corsican Brocciu.

Well, I know, it’s not conventional at all and the Corsicans will tell me that it is no longer the real traditional recipe. But the fact is that there is no brocciu throughout the year, nor everywhere in France. And with bush or ricotta, you get a fairly similar result. Purists, jump this paragraph and go to the next!

With or without alcohol?

My little Corsican grandmother I’m talking about just after putting homemade alcohol but I admit that I didn’t understand what it was done.
We can add A dash of Aquavita alcoholCorsican water of life or myrtle liqueurthis small shrub that covers the Corsican hills, with flavors halfway between rosemary and juniper. You can also use fruit alcohol you have.
Or abstain from alcohol. You can then add A little lemons juice from which you have taken the zest.

Why sweeten the mold

I use a 23 cm hinge mold here (and I admit, I did several things at a time and the fiadone is a little over -tanned and a little more dense than usual. I will do photos next time).

Ideally, you need a slightly smaller mold. 18 to 20 cm In diameter is perfect for having a little thicker fiadone than in these photos.

You will butter the cake mold then put sugar and tap in all directions so that the sugar hangs on the bottom and the walls all around. It is the same process as when you flour a cake pan.

This will caramelize and give the Fiadone a golden side, do a bit as if you had a delicious crust all around. The addition of sugar here is of course optional.