The italian cornetto

The Italian cornetto is just as delicious as the famous French croissant. Here are the secrets to making a perfect batch every time
Italian-Cornetto-1200x800

What makes Italian pastry unique is the ability of every artisan to customize recipes and production techniques according to their own creativity and the tastes of their customers.
Even the most classic pastry products like the cornetto vary not only from North to South, but from city to city. It is truly difficult to offer a recipe that is “THE” recipe, but we can give you some useful tips so you can create your own.

A bit of history

The Italian cornetto is derived from the traditional Viennese dessert, kipfel, a specialty that is both sweet and savory, shaped like a crescent. The kipfel probably arrived in Italy in the second half of the 16th century, during the period of intense trade between the Republic of Venice and Vienna. Venetian pastry chefs transformed it into a cornetto, varying the recipe and the ingredients. In fact, the cornetto is made with flour, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, butter, and yeast
and can be served empty or filled, while the kipfel is made with flour, water, yeast, and sugar in small quantities. The shape is almost the same.

The differences…

Between croissants, cornettos and danishes. Croissants have a leaner dough, less sugar, less butter, no eggs or at most a few. More butter is used in the lamination phase (usually 33% of the dough – 1 kg of butter in 3 kg of dough) to give the croissant more crispness and a more intense flavour. Remember that lamination is the phase where the butter is spread between the layers, before folding the dough, an operation that is repeated several times. Moreover, no flavours are used so this makes them ideal even for savoury pastries. Croissants and danishes have a very similar dough, but twice as much sugar, butter (up to three times as much in danishes), eggs, flavourings, and less butter is used during lamination (usually 28% of the dough – 1 kg of butter in 3.5 kg of dough). The cornetto has a traditional horn shape, while danishes are shaped like a roll, bundle, or pinwheel. The difference in taste? Croissants have a rather neutral taste, while the Italian cornetto is more aromatic. It’s perfect when crumbly and flaky on the outside and with a moist, dense honeycomb crumb.

Italian-Cornetto-4

Starter dough

  • flour W300/350 P/L 0.55/0.65 200 g
  • brewer’s yeast 10 g
  • water 110 ml

Put the flour, yeast, and water in the planetary mixer. Use the hook at minimum speed. Make sure that the dough is smooth, uniform, and stringy. Mix for
a few turns at high speed, checking that the temperature does not exceed 26- 27°C. Once the operation is complete, place the dough in a bowl covered with film and set aside to rise. The dough must double in size. The best temperature is 27°C for about 14 hours. Once the dough has doubled, place it in the fridge
for at least an hour.

For the dough

  • flour W300/350 P/L 0.55/0.65 800 g
  • water 250 ml
  • sugar 220 g
  • malt 20 g
  • whole eggs 250 g
  • butter 220 g
  • yeast 10 g
  • grated orange peel 12 g
  • salt 20 g
  • vanilla pod 1

Put the water, sugar, malt, and yeast in the planetary mixer and knead at low speed with the hook.
Add the flour, maintaining the consistency of the mix. Add the starter dough and work until a gluten mesh is formed.
Cream the butter without whipping it and then mix in the aromas, holding the salt for last. Add the butter mixture to the dough, working until completely absorbed.
Cover the dough and let it rise for one hour at 24-26°C. Form a rectangular loaf and let it rest in the fridge (+4°C) for at least 8 hours or overnight.

For laminating and shaping

  •  butter

Italian cornetto with brewer’s yeast

Before laminating the temperature of the dough must be 4°C and the butter 14°C. Use a rolling pin to flatten the butter into a rectangle between two sheets of baking paper. Roll out the dough and form a large rectangle one and a half times the size of the flattened butter. Center the butter on the dough, leaving 1 cm of space around the edges. Fold the free edge of the dough over the butter and the remaining part over the fold just made. Make three simple folds, placing the dough for at least an hour in the fridge between folds. After the third fold, place it in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Roll the dough into a rectangle and cut out isosceles triangles measuring 10 x 15 cm.
Roll the triangles from the base to the tip and let them rise for 3 hours on a baking sheet with baking paper, covering them with film to prevent the surface from drying out. Leave to rise at 27°C for about 20 hours. The leavening time may change due to climatic conditions and water hardness. Proper lamination involves rolling out the dough without breaking the butter layer below. For a perfect cornetto the weight must be about 55-60 grams. Mini cornettos weigh 35 grams. Cornettos should not be filled before baking, only afterwards, so as not to ruin their consistency.

Baking

Bake in static mode at 180°C for 18-22 minutes until golden. Near the end of baking you can gently brush them with egg white, sprinkling a little sugar for a crispy crust. Or you can brush them with a mix of equal parts yolk and milk or cream. Leave them to cool on a grill.

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