[mandarin.mint]

Hi Dominick,

Is this what the pasticcini looks like?

Here is a recipe I found :
Adriana's Italian Recipe for Pasticcini

Don't know if that's what you're looking for. Good luck!

[redvech]

Originally Posted by m brown

So, my grandmother called a pastry bikki nuts.

it was an italian sweet with a short crust, pastry cream, lattus top egg wash and pignoli, dusted with 10x.

Siduri said: "I can't imagine what bikki nuts would be - bicchi (which would be the italian spelling) doesn;t mean anything as far as i know. it may be an Anglification of something but i can't imagine what."

My grandmother used to call a similar pastry "Boogie-Naught" This spelling only represents the pronounciation, not the correct spelling. Hope it helps.

[siduri]

still doesn;t sound like anything i know, redvech. It sounds like "buchi" (pronounced boo-key) which means holes, buchino wouild mean small holes, but doesn;t make sense and doesn;t have a final t.
I'm no expert on this, just that i speak italian, but there are so many dialects, now i'm really curious.
The pastry case, pastry cream, lattice top and pinoli is "torta della nonna" (grandma's cake) in rome. but i think i said that.

[siduri]

Just got an inspiration. I remember my grandmother and mother used to make pies with pasta frolla and either ricotta, or a sort of rice pudding baked in, and made a decoration with nthe dough around the edge, which if i had a pen here, i could draw, - you make a diagonal cut in the extra dough, fold it over, so you get a triangular point sticking out from the pie, do it all around and then with your hands, bend them in so they go over the pie, making a border of triangles. This was called "i becchi" - the beaks.
becchi is pronounced "bek-kee"- small ones would be called becchini (though that also means gravedigger).
couldthis be what you're talking about?

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by siduri

Just got an inspiration. I remember my grandmother and mother used to make pies with pasta frolla and either ricotta, or a sort of rice pudding baked in, and made a decoration with nthe dough around the edge, which if i had a pen here, i could draw, - you make a diagonal cut in the extra dough, fold it over, so you get a triangular point sticking out from the pie, do it all around and then with your hands, bend them in so they go over the pie, making a border of triangles. This was called "i becchi" - the beaks.
becchi is pronounced "bek-kee"- small ones would be called becchini (though that also means gravedigger).
couldthis be what you're talking about?

Crostatta ricotta -- with pasta frolla i becchi. I do that!

BDL

[redvech]

Siduri -
Mandarin.mint posted a picture closer to what I remember. it did not have a lattice top, and had a pudding-like filling.

[siduri]

yes, torta della nonna has pudding filling, not ricotta, and the pine nuts on top, though generally no lattice. The becchi, as bdl says, are usually on ricotta pie, or rice pie as i know it, but piantedosi might habve been making something from a particular region or even town in italy.

[pazzo]

Originally Posted by DOMINICK

Hi, I'm back.
I just flew in from the North End in Boston and found the pastry I was asking about.
It is called PERUGINI and it's ingredients I'm guessing is as follows:
The top layer is a pastry dough sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Then there is about a 1/4" layer of Italian cream (whatever that is).
The center has some sort of sponge cake between 1" & 1-1/2" thick soaked with boiled run (?)
Then another layer of Italian cream.
Finally a bottom layer of pastry dough.

I don't know if this helps. If it makes sense to you I would appreciate a breakdown of this recipe so I can try to make it myself.
Thanks for all your help,
Dominick

Interesting, I just returned from living in Perugia for several months and the people there are "i Perugini". I don't recognize that pastry at all, though.