Rocciata di Assisi

The rocciata is one of Umbria's oldest sweets, a rolled pastry of the harvest and of the All Saints' and All Souls' season, made from late autumn through winter's end. Its kinship with strudel is usually put down to the medieval Lombard presence in central Italy; the folk tale of Austrian soldiers, by contrast, has no historical support. Some trace it further back still, to the ancient Umbrians, noting that the bronze Eugubine Tablets record a ritual offering-cake, tensendo, thought to resemble it. The name, like its variants attorta, 'ntorta and tortella, derives from arrocciare or torcere, "to coil" or "to twist." It is made as rocciata around Foligno, Spello and Cannara, as attorta around Spoleto, and as tortella toward Terni and Narni; the Foligno version has sought DOP protection, and the pastry carries PAT recognition in Umbria and the Marche. A savoury version filled with cooked greens, the fojata or erbata, exists alongside the sweet.

A crisp, flaky, paper-thin crust gives way to a dense, moist coil of fruit and nuts—soft sweet apple, the crunch and butteriness of walnuts, chewy raisins, warm cinnamon and a bitter-dark thread of chocolate, all lifted by lemon. Where alkermes is used, the red crust adds a faint floral, spiced sweetness.

With no leavening, the dough depends on gluten worked to full extensibility and then rested so it relaxes and can be stretched almost translucent without tearing; the white wine and oil lubricate the gluten and, with the wine's alcohol, keep the sheet from turning tough. Rolled thin and coiled, the pastry bakes into brittle layers as steam separates the wrapped dough and the surface oil crisps it. The filling is largely apple and dried fruit: their sugars and the apple's pectin hold moisture and caramelise at the edges under heat, while the walnut oils turn nutty and aromatic. Cinnamon and lemon are aromatic seasonings, and the alkermes wash lends colour and a spiced perfume as its sugars caramelise on the crust.