Cuzzupe: Calabria's Traditional Easter Cookie

By Daniela Sfara

Italy is beautiful. It’s also wonderfully complicated. Every region, every town—every street corner, heck every street in some places, really—has its own different way of doing things, especially in the cucina.

If you’re Italian, you already know what I mean. And if you’re not Italian, well… settle in and allow me to offer you a small and very real glimpse into the loud, loving, and gloriously stubborn inner heart of a Southern Italian kitchen.

These differences run very deep—and if you really want to see them in full theatrical production, just show up around the holidays.

Easter? Easter is prime time.

Cuzzupe, for example—Calabria’s traditional Easter cookie. Depending on where you’re standing (and which nonna you’re speaking with), they might be called sgute, cudduraci, or ngute. Don’t ask for an english word, there isn’t one. And heaven help you if you mix them up; you’ll be corrected for weeks. Because that’s when the real show begins: the animated, affectionate, and totally non-negotiable exchange of “how they’re really supposed to be made.”

Same dough? Sort of.

Same town? Yes.

Entirely different philosophies? A hundred times Yes.

You’ll hear ladies in the middle of the street, at the local forno or leaning over the balcony, passionately debating the right way to make them. Everyone listens respectfully—because that’s how we were raised—but deep down, everyone knows their version is the best. It’s a cultural rite of passage to nod politely while mentally filing someone else’s recipe as “close but not quite.”

Some will say the dough should be dense. Others will argue it must be pillow-soft. One insists on the signature hard-boiled egg on top, symbolic and ceremonial. Someone else will wave that off as decoration with no flavor. One will say anise, the other says vanilla. Then there’s the inevitable: “That’s not how mamma made them.” Which, in Calabria, is basically the final word.

Funny enough: no one’s ever really offended. They’ll let you have your moment, will head back home to gossip about your incorrectly made cookies to whomever will listen as they’re mixing up another batch, and that will be that. Until the next holiday. The next recipe. The next debate.

I’ve long been convinced that if shows like MasterChef swapped out their—albeit talented—judges for a panel of nonne, the ratings would shoot faster and higher than Musk’s wildest space fantasies.

I love you, Musk—but let’s be honest. No AI you create will ever come close to the wit, wisdom, and razor-sharp know how of a nonna.

I could go on with examples of just how lovingly entertaining an Italian home is, but the point is that these cookies—however you name them or shape them—represent family, faith, and a sweet bite of tradition that has survived generations. A little flour, a little sugar, and a whole lot of legacy and amore.

So here’s my no-hard-boiled-egg-on-top cuzzupe—still traditional in recipe, as my mamma and nonna made them, just shaped for easier enjoyment. And to me? They’re perfect.

CUZZUPE CALABRESI

Makes approximately 12 cookies.

INGREDIENTS

1 3/4 cup flour 00
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup room temperature butter
2 tsp baking powder
1 lemon zest grated
Coloured confetti

PROCEDURE

On your preferred clean kitchen surface, form a well with the flour
Cut butter into small pieces and add to well
Add sugar, baking powder, zest and eggs
Mix and knead thoroughly with your hands until you achieve a smooth pastry
Dust a light amount of flour to the side and set pastry to rest for 10 minutes
Preheat oven to 355
Line a baking sheet with parchment
Ok, let’s shape and bake these beauties…
On a lightly flour dusted surface, cut a small amount of the pastry and begin to roll into a rope shape of approximately 3mm thick
Cut ropes in length of 14mm – to achieved a baked diameter of 6mm cookies
Place on parchment lined sheets
Sprinkle the coloured confetti
Bake for 12-16 min until lightly golden
Remove from oven and let cool