Maritozzo

A soft, slightly sweet oval bun split lengthways and filled to overflowing with whipped cream: the maritozzo is Rome's breakfast pastry, eaten standing at the bar with a cappuccino and a napkin ready. The dough is enriched with olive oil or butter, eggs and a little honey or sugar, and the older Roman version, the maritozzo quaresimale, carried raisins, pine nuts and candied orange peel and no cream at all; it was one of the few sweets permitted during Lent. The name is a diminutive of marito, husband, from the custom of a suitor giving one to his intended, sometimes with a ring hidden inside. The cream-filled version took over the city's pastry counters in the twentieth century and has spread, in the last decade, to bakeries well beyond Lazio, often in miniature or with flavoured creams.