For breakfast, for a snack, as a dessert: in every meal there is room for a slice of sbrisolona. The Mantuan cake owes its name to its texture: brisa in Mantua means crumb in Italian.
It is a crumbly and rustic cake, made with simple and easily available ingredients, which can be dipped in milk, wine or enriched with cream: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, almonds and lemon peel create a crunchy, rough and fragrant dough.
Very similar to its ‘sister’ from Treviso, fregolotta (fregola means crumb in Veneto, which goes without saying), it can be enjoyed at any time of day and is loved by children for its sweetness and by adults for that slightly salty taste that makes it really special.

Andrea accompanies it with his raisin wine zabaglione: a creamy, warming touch for a dessert that will not remain on the plate.

Pour all ingredients except almonds into a bowl and start kneading with your hands quickly until coarsely mixed.
Add the almonds and mix to distribute them well: the mixture should still be ‘coarse’.
Take the dough with your hands and drop it onto a baking tray with baking paper to form dough crumbs. Gently and evenly arrange the crumbs, which will be of irregular shape and size: they should be about 2 cm thick, so try not to crush them too much.

Bake in a preheated oven at 160° for about an hour or until the surface of the cake is golden brown. Let it cool completely and break it into pieces. If it is still not completely crispy, dry it in the oven at 130 degrees for another 30 minutes.

The preparation of this zabaglione is very simple and quick.
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl placed in a bain-marie and continue stirring with a whisk until the temperature reaches 80 degrees or until the consistency is thick, creamy and frothy: be careful not to overcook and make the eggs congeal.
Serve the zabaglione still warm together with the sbrisolona.