Chocolate Cantucci

Cantucci Schoko. Biscotti con Cioccolato, which have no place in Vin Santo.

Cantucci Schoko, in Italy Biscotti con Cioccolato, are dark chocolate biscuits from Fratelli Lunardi in Tuscany. They are baked with butter and coarsely chopped chocolate. Not a hard dipping biscuit, not a cookie with chocolate chips, not a Cantuccio with a seal of origin.

Biscotti con Cioccolato are Italian chocolate biscuits from the Tuscan bakery Fratelli Lunardi, whose dough not only carries the chocolate, but binds it. Those who know Cantucci expect resistance: break, dip into Vin Santo, wait, bite. This biscuit makes the detour unnecessary. It yields at the first pressure and melts butterily on the tongue. What remains is a piece of chocolate that outlasts the bite by a few seconds.

In the Lunardi home, this biscuit is therefore simply called "the King". The reversal is intentional: it is not the dough that holds the chocolate together, but the chocolate that gives the crumbling dough stability. Those who have only known Italian chocolate biscuits as crispy goods from the supermarket shelf will need the first two pieces to adjust. After that, going back is rather unlikely.

Why this biscuit loses in Vin Santo

The dough is deep dark and so crumbly that it yields when broken off instead of cracking. This is the opposite of what the classic Tuscan school has been baking for generations.

On the palate, the cocoa is upfront, tart and dry. Then the butter kicks in and takes the edge off the tartness, without masking it. At the very end, a hint of Italian orange oil lifts the cocoa. It's not a citrus aroma that pushes itself forward, but a fine edge that allows the aftertaste to linger longer.

The coarse pieces, called pezzettoni in the house, are deliberately cut unevenly. No bite repeats the previous one. Sometimes it's almost all dough, sometimes a chunk that takes up half the mouth. This irregularity is intentional and not carelessness.

The broken edge also tells this story. It shows a fine-pored, almost black crumb, in which the pieces sit like inlaid shards. A cookie shows evenly distributed dots at this point; this biscuit shows randomness. The intensity is generally more powerful than subtle, without sweetness dominating.

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