Fiadone Traditional Corsican bush and lemon cake recipe

Fiadone is the traditional Corsican cake with the emblematic sheep cheese Brocciu, Corsican bush, and lemon.

I give you the recipe the true traditional recipe for fiadone as it was to me given by a little Corsican grandmother.
It’s basically a kind of lemon cheesecake where you quickly mix all the ingredients before cooking them for half an hour. Super easy and quick.

And as it is not always easy to find the brocciu, which it is made from, I suggest a variation to make all year round with bush or ricotta. Sacrilege some might say, but we are here in the adaptation for good Corsican cuisine for a delicious homemade dessert.

The real fiadone recipe learned from a Corsican grandmother

I give you here the recipe given by a little grandmother met in the small village of Lumio near Calvi. She was sitting outside her door, with her cats.
I complimented her on the color of her house and then a magical moment took place. Her face lit up, she thanked me and invited me into her house which was just a large vaulted room a bit like a cellar with a kitchen at the back.
She offered me some cookies she had just made and we started talking about cooking.

That’s when she showed me his cooking notebooka Clairefontaine spiral notebook, and gave me his family recipe for fiadone.
A sweet moment of sharing and this mention on the cover of the notebook, I love:

“Cooking and baking recipes written by mom and Yorda. Varied recipes from Corsica and France. Treasures of know-how that take us back to the blessed time in the history of our lives and our family. Only happiness!”

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

How to make a perfect fiadone

For an authentic fiadone, you actually need few ingredients. You will see that the real recipe is quick and simple.

You need:

• Corsican brocciu cheese (which you can replace with ricotta or ricotta) I’ll explain all that to you right after
• eggs
• sugar (white or red)
• citrus zest. Generally lemon zest.

And that’s it. No flourso it is a gluten-free recipea bit between a flan and a cake. A kind of Corsican cheesecake.

Adding fruit liqueur or lemon juice is optional. In the traditional recipe you do not use pie dough although you sometimes find fiadones cooked on dough in bakeries.

Ideally butter and add sugar to your mold as in the step by step of these photos, this will form a nice caramelized crust at the bottom and at the edges of the fiadone.

The ingredients are mixed as for a flan mixture all together in a salad bowl or mixing bowl. Above all, do not use a robot or Thermomix. We want to keep texture. Mash the brocciu with a fork then add the other ingredients and mixtures with a fork. It’s okay if there are small unmixed pieces of cheese left and your preparation is not completely homogenous..

Some separate the whites from the yolks to whip the whites for a more frothy result. This is not my little Corsican grandmother’s version.

And then we simply bake this cheesecake in the oven for about thirty minutes. It doesn’t matter if your fiadone is a little cracked on the top, it’s even a good sign. We want it to have a nice golden color and a slightly caramelized crust. Well mine was a little forgotten in the oven the day of my photos so a little overcooked. Sorry.

Finally let it cool and serve warm or cold.

Brocciu AOP

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

The manufacturing process: The whey is first heated to 35°C and saltedThen 15% fresh whole milk is added and everything is then heated to a temperature of 80-90°Cclose to boiling but without boiling, until a creamy foam forms on the surface.
This moss is collected by hand and placed using a utensil called a “shovel” in the faitselle moldssmall baskets with holes. This hand manipulation guarantees a supple and not too dense texture.

It takes 11 liters of sheep’s 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 matured and called brocciu passu.

The production period from winter to early summer follows the lactation cycle of the sheep and is strictly governed by the rules of the AOP.
Brocciu has a supple and soft texture, a typical whey smell and a typical sheep’s taste, sweet and slightly tangy.

The legend of Brocciu: I read several things.
– the first says that it was Solomon who passed on the recipe for making brocciu to Corsican shepherds.
– Another says thata cruel ogre who terrorized the inhabitants and stole the sheep lived in the “casa di l’ucru” (which can be translated as the ogre’s house). The ogre was captured by the shepherds and in an attempt to plead his case and be pardoned revealed to them his secret brocciu recipe.. The brocciu was adopted by the shepherds, but the ogre was not spared.

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

What to replace Brocciu in fiadone?

• Through the bush, a Provençal cheese, which is however a little drier and firmer, less creamy than brocciu
• With ricotta. It works very well. To try all year round when you want to make this cake and you don’t have access to Corsican brocciu.

Well, I know, it’s not at all conventional and the Corsicans will tell me that it’s no longer the real traditional recipe. But the fact is that you cannot find Brocciu all year round, nor everywhere in France. And with bush or ricotta, you get a pretty good result. Purists, skip this paragraph and go to the next one!

With or without alcohol?

My little Corsican grandmother who I’m talking to you about right after used a homemade alcohol but I admit I didn’t really understand what it was made of.
We can add a dash of aquavita alcohola Corsican brandy or myrtle liqueurthis small shrub that covers the Corsican hills, with flavors halfway between rosemary and juniper. You can also use fruit alcohol which you have available.
Or abstain from alcohol. You can then add a little lemon juice from which you will have taken the zest.

Why sweeten the mold

I’m using a 23 cm springform mold here (and I admit, I was doing several things at once and the fiadone is a little overcooked so it’s nicely tanned and a little denser than usual. I’ll take photos next time).

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

You will butter the cake mold then add sugar and tap in all directions so that the sugar sticks to the bottom and the walls all around. It’s the same process as when you flour a cake pan.

This will caramelize and give the fiadone a golden appearance, making it a bit like you have a delicious crust all around. Adding sugar here is of course optional.