Isolini

Castellucchio’s signature cookies are Isolini: a blaze of apricot jam and Piedmont hazelnuts, a sweet crust of tasty glaze that covers a crumbly butter dough. The specialty of these simple and wholesome treats lies in the skillful workmanship of their producers.

“These sweets - explains Mauro Castellucchio - are the result of an intuition we had about thirty years ago. We wanted to offer our customers a distinctive taste, so, with a hazelnut sprinkled shortbread, sugar frosting and apricot jam, a product that differs from all other recipes was born. After we began to package the pasteries, we had to find a name to be put on the label. The most natural thing seemed to dedicate them to our village. Milan has Panettone, Cremona has Torrone and Isola ... what would it we be not Isolini? From then on, these fragrant biscuits have come a long way...”.

It’s always Mauro who retraces the steps of their success:

“It all started in 1998, when exposing Isolini at the “Torrone Festival” in Cremona, Silvio Berbero, President of Slow Food, was won by our products. Afterwards, he invited us to participate at the “Salone del Gusto” in Turin. Since that time, the success of our sweets has grew, and in 1999 Mantua’s ATP, in charge of organizing the banquet for the G7 at the Palazzo Clerici in Milan, contacted us to commission a large amount of Isolini. At the dinner of the representatives of the seven most important nations of the world, our cookies were among the specialties that represented Lombardy.”

Nevertheless, the adventure of these treats does not end here: in 2000, Isolini were exhibited at the Milan’s Fair in the Lombardy Region Stand and they gained a place on Italian television screens when the Rai’s cameras stop right on them during an episode of the famous program “Linea Verde”. Moreover, they have been reviewed on influential magazines such as “Cucina Italiana” and “Wineshop Italia.com”, or tourist guides such as "Il Buon Paese” and “Guida Gourmet Lombardia”; and they deserved a mention in the list of Po Valley’s sweetness on the website “La Padania on line”.

Despite these acknowledgements, their inventors seem to give little weight to the success achieved by Isolini:

“It often happens that some ice-cream shops or bakeries ask us to sell our cookies, but we prefer to sell them ourselves, because we could not keep up with production and we don't want to use preservatives. However we have customers who order them from Brescia, Milan, even from Florence... We begin to prepare them at four thirty in the morning and we often work through the night, sometimes with only four people”.

“Every day we freshly bake more than twenty pounds of Isolini, and also prepare other types of biscuits, a total of about sixty six pounds a day and then there are the packages, all of which are hand wrapped”.

As to the secret of their recipe, Castellucchios attribute their success to authenticity, freshness and the passion of their work, but never disclose exactly what’s inside...