Shortbread biscotti with a big jammy ‘eye’ are found all across bars in Italy, and are a bit like giant jammy dodgers
Imagine a large and particularly neat fried egg with a well-centred extra-large yolk: these are the proportions of the biscotti occhi di bue, bullseye biscuits that sit behind glass-fronted counters in bars all over Italy. Pale pairs of shortbread biscuits stuck together with jam, a hole in the top biscuit exposing a large, smooth, orange eye. Sometimes there will be smaller bullseye biscuits, too, maybe with fluted edges and a jammy dodger-style strawberry heart instead of an eye. Nutella can also be used as a filling. But the most common eyes are big and apricot: a biscuit cyclops for breakfast.
When my son was small, and before the owner sold up to be a music producer, we used to go to a bar on the way home from the train station. I had noticed their biscuits, of course, but never eaten one until my son pleaded, as if his life depended on it, to have one for breakfast. Large for an adult, biscotti occhi di bue are enormous when you are four, overwhelming even, and he held it in front of his face and stared, hypnotised by the jam, all the way home. We were back in the kitchen when, after much staring and poking, he finally bit into his breakfast and discovered it was more biscuit than jam. The biscuit was passed over to me and, unthinking, I ate it with a cup of tea, which was hugely enjoyable, but not the right thing to do, because my son then remembered that his life depended on the biscuit, and he lay on the floor, face down and rigid, in protest. He has never forgotten this, and neither have I, which is why they are now known as jammy thief bullseye biscuits: smaller than those you find in a bar, and with a central hole made using the plastic cap of a milk bottle.
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