Rachel Roddy’s recipe for almond and cherry biscuits | A kitchen in Rome

If a fig roll married a bakewell tart, their offspring might well end up looking like these rustic, fruity and nutty Puglian biscuits

Similar in principle to fig rolls, biscotti di ceglie consist of pastry wrapped around a filling of jam, so they have an irregular and extremely rustic cube form. Known locally as u’ piscquett’l, these biscuits are typical of the town and commune of Ceglie Messapica in the province of Brindisi in Puglia. Ceglie Messapica is also part of the southern reaches of the Murgia, a karst topographic plateau sometimes called the backbone of Puglia, with remarkable agricultural biodiversity, including 40 local varieties of almonds, including tondino cegliese. Like many visitors to the area, we bought a packet of biscotti di ceglie from a bakery in Ceglie Messapica, although this was years ago, when the band my partner plays with toured in Puglia every summer and when we consumed every regional treat in a claustrophobic Fiat van.

Unlike the great fig roll, however, the pastry for these biscuits is made from toasted almonds, sugar and honey, and includes lemon zest and a citrus essence liqueur called rosolio di agrumi; the jam, meanwhile, is typically cherry, but can also be grape. Made for hundreds of years, and a sort of symbol of the town, the biscuits are recognised by the Slow Food Foundation, whose many Slow Food Presidia protect traditional and artisanal products that are at risk of disappearing, as well as help producers access a fairer market. Together with local producers, the regional consortium specifies what is to be considered an original biscotto di Ceglie Messapica – so that all the ingredients must come from the countryside around Ceglie itself. A local consorzio has laid out a fantastically detailed set of instructions, specifying quantities (every 1kg almonds should be mixed with 300g sugar, 50g honey, 10ml liqueur, three to four eggs and the zest of a lemon) and describing the procedure in great detail. All this to say, this week’s recipe is not the original biscotti di Ceglie Messapica, but it is inspired by them and, I hope, respectful.