Ossa di Morto

A biscuit bound to the Sicilian cult of the dead. Across the island the night of 1 to 2 November, the commemoration of the departed, was long a children's festival: the dead were said to return and leave gifts and sweets in the 'cannistru', a cane basket, to be found on the morning of the 2nd, and among them these bone-shaped biscuits. Known in different Sicilian dialects as mustazzoli, nucatoli, moscardini or paste di garofano, the 'clove pastes', they belong to the same family of hard spiced sweets that spread through Spanish Sicily. They are recognised as a Prodotto Agroalimentare Tradizionale of the island, and are traditionally eaten with a glass of sweet Marsala.

Rock-hard at first bite, then yielding: the white top shatters into sweet, brittle shards while the dark base is dense and chewy, almost toffee-like. The flavour is pure sugar warmed by clove and cinnamon, aromatic and lingering. Left as they are they can crack a tooth, so they are dipped in Marsala or coffee until they soften to a fragrant, spiced chew.

The split top and base are a lesson in sugar. The paste is roughly half sugar, and the long drying rest lets a firm crust form as surface water evaporates, so the shaped biscuits set. In the oven the sugar in contact with the hot tray melts and caramelises, browning through the Maillard reaction with the spices into the dark, chewy foot; higher up, as water bakes off, the sugar recrystallises into the pale, hard, glassy 'bone'. Because the melted base and the drier top expand and set at different rates, the biscuit lifts and separates into its two joined layers. With so little water and so much sugar binding it, the finished biscuit is very low in moisture, which is why it keeps for months and stays bone-hard until liquid is soaked back in.