Resta comasca: the sweet Easter bread of Lake Como

La resta di Como is a sweet loaf with raisins and candied fruit typical of the Easter period. Here is the original recipe and its history.

The rest is a typical Como dessert that resembles a loaf in shape. The peculiarity lies in the presence, inside, of an olive branch , which made it the typical dessert of Como for Easter. The most modern versions, in compliance with food regulations, include the characteristic engravings but no longer contain any olive branch. The most famous version of this dessert is the rest of Baj.

As for the ingredients, the tradition is very strict in this regard: raisins and candied fruit cannot be missing as well as butter and the intense aroma of honey . The preparation is not at all complex and we can guarantee you that you will be pleasantly stupid by this sweet bread.

How to prepare the recipe for Como’s rest

1. Pour 50 ml of water into a bowl and dissolve the yeast. Then add 50 g of flour and knead quickly to form the dough . Let rise covered with cling film for an hour.
2. Put the leaven in a larger bowl with the flour, sugar and honey.
3. Start kneading by adding the melted butter a little at a time and the eggs, always one at a time.
4. Finally, flavor with the grated lemon zest and add a pinch of salt. Let rise for an hour.
5. Then stir in the soaked and squeezed raisins and the candied fruit, kneading quickly to distribute them. Form a loaf and if you want, with the help of a tarot, insert a sprig of olive in the center along the length .
6. Let rise again for a couple of hours.
7. Then cut the surface to form the bones and bake at 180 ° C for 50 minutes.
8. Serve the Como leftover once it has cooled down.

If you love these recipes, check out the other Easter desserts too .

Resta di Como: the history

We are in the early nineteenth century in the lakeside city of Como. The owner of a tavern, a certain Michele, used to delight guests, on the occasion of his name day, with a delicious lunch that could only end with a dessert. One year, however, things did not go as planned and, either due to an excess of yeast, or to a too long leavening, his sweet bread came out of the leavening vat .

Not knowing how to solve the problem, he helped himself with an olive branch that he had nearby but this remained incorporated in the dough. His attempts to put the dough back inside with the help of a knife were useless: the cuts were impressed on the surface. But astonishment followed the despair: the loaf looked like a bone! The exclamation “ Par la resca d’un pèss! ”(Or“ It looks like a fish bone ”) gave the cake its current name, transliterating herringbone into rest.

storage

The rest of Como can be kept in a paper bag for 4-5 days .