a brioche at the octave

A brioche made of many tuppi joined together, eight little golden glossy domes united into a flower. Usually the tuppo is one, here there are eight: it's like having a brioche at the octave, the same note but fuller. Beside it, a little metal bowl with the zabaione, yellow, a dark dusting on top.

The brioche is at room temperature, soft, fluffy, with that Sicilian flavour of the brioche col tuppo, where the egg is there but doesn't invade, it sits underneath and holds everything together without making itself felt too much. I tear it into pieces and dip it.

The zabaione is neither cold nor hot, it stays in the middle, and it's the right temperature to keep it creamy without running. It's balanced, it doesn't cloy, and at a certain point the Marsala arrives, pushing, giving that alcoholic and sweet lift at once that tells you it's a zabaione made the way it should be and not just any cream.

They're two simple Sicilian things set side by side, the morning bar brioche and the Sunday zabaione, and together they become a whole dessert. Nothing invented, nothing constructed, just two right things made well and brought close. I finish dipping the last tuppo, and it seems to me the most honest way to close a lunch like this.