Colàz

The colàz is an old festive ring of the Friulian and Carnic table, of broadly Venetian origin and in use, the sources say, well before 1500. It belonged above all to Confirmation, long tied to Pentecost: children left the church with the rings threaded on coloured ribbons of red, white and pale blue, worn like a necklace, the largest set on the head like a crown. Tradition holds the biscuits were so prized that a sixteenth-century decree capped a godfather at 500 colàz for his godchild, their number a measure of his standing and of his good wishes for the child. On the Trieste Carso the same ring, made from pinza dough, served for baptisms, and in parts of Friuli the colàz da sope, dipped in wine, were a wedding sweet. Now safeguarded on the Slow Food Ark of Taste, the colàz are typical across Udine and Pordenone.

Firm and short, snapping into a friable, faintly sandy crumb rather than a hard biscuit, warm with cinnamon and clove, sweet and just rich enough from the lard, its glossy egg-washed top carrying the crackle of sugar grains.

Lard is the key to the texture. As a nearly pure, plastic fat it coats the flour proteins and blocks gluten from linking, so the baked ring stays short and friable rather than tough, and does this more effectively than butter, which carries water. Ammonium bicarbonate leavens cleanly: it decomposes fully in the oven into gas and vapour with no residual salt, opening the crumb and leaving no taste, and because the rings are slim the ammonia escapes completely. The egg-yolk wash browns through the Maillard reaction and sets to a glaze, while the scattered sugar stays crisp on top. Baked to a low moisture, the rings keep well.