In Tuscany, some words sound like ingredients.
Ramerino is one of them.

It is not just rosemary. It is rosemary said the Tuscan way, with a softer, more homely sound, the kind that feels like a kitchen with the window open. It smells of sunlit vegetable gardens, of hands breaking off a sprig, of bread taking on its fragrance even before it takes on colour.

For the second chapter in #TUSCANSTORIES, our series dedicated to the products and traditions that taste of Tuscany, we begin right here: with a fragrant herb, a handful of raisins and an ancient sweet bread.

And we arrive at our Ramerini – Tuscan Cookies, Fratelli Lunardi biscuits with raisins and rosemary, inspired by Pan di Ramerino and transformed into a small round, crumbly, surprising delight.

Before the biscuit, there was bread

Pan di Ramerino is one of those recipes that says a lot with very little.

Flour, oil, raisins, rosemary, sugar. Just a few ingredients, but carefully chosen. A measured sweetness, a distinctive fragrance, a soft texture like celebration bread.

In Florentine tradition, it was mainly associated with Lent and Holy Thursday, when these small sweet breads were prepared, blessed and brought to the table in the days leading up to Easter.

It was not a showpiece dessert, the kind that tries to get noticed at all costs.
It was a quieter kind of sweet. One that arrives through its fragrance before its appearance. One that does not need to promise too much, because it delivers the moment you taste it.

Raisins and ramerino: an unlikely pair, and therefore a perfect one

When you think about it, raisins and rosemary seem like two opposite characters.

Raisins are soft, sweet, rounded.
Rosemary is sharp, green, almost wild.

One brings the sunshine of ripe grapes.
The other brings the scented shade of Mediterranean shrubs.

And yet they work beautifully together. Perhaps precisely because they are so different.

Rosemary gives depth to the sweetness of the raisins. The raisins tame the character of the rosemary. One pushes, the other welcomes. One awakens, the other comforts.

It is one of those balances Tuscan cooking knows so well: nothing too much, nothing unnecessary. Just the right flavour in the right place.

Every area has its own sweet bread

The beautiful thing about Tuscan traditions is that they never stand still.

They change name, change shape, change fragrance from one city to another, sometimes from one village to the next.

In Florence, people talk about Pan di Ramerino.
In Pistoia, during the Easter period, scole are also part of local food memory: sweet buns tied to the local tradition, often enriched with raisins and scented with different aromas, such as aniseed.

They are not the same recipe, but they belong to the same emotional family: that of springtime sweet breads, baked goods that begin simply and become memories. These are foods that do not merely nourish: they mark a time of year, a habit, a table, a return.

In the end, Tuscany is also this: a region where a dough can change name after just a few kilometres, while continuing to say the same thing.

Home.

Fratelli Lunardi Ramerini: a tradition that changes shape

At Fratelli Lunardi, scole have always been one of those flavours to keep close.

Ancient, fragrant, utterly Tuscan.

That is where the idea for Ramerini – Tuscan Cookies came from: not a copy of the scola or Pan di Ramerino, but a small, delicious detour. A way of taking that scent of raisins and rosemary and bringing it into an everyday biscuit, easier to nibble, to share, to slip into the pantry and rediscover when you feel like something a little different.

The result is a cookie that does not taste like ordinary cookies.

And thank goodness for that.

Inside, there are raisins: generous and soft.
There is rosemary, arriving later and lingering for a while.
There is a gentle crumbliness, the kind that makes it good for breakfast, for an afternoon snack or after dinner, when the day calls for a small but well-made ending.

A cookie with a Tuscan accent

Ramerini are part of the Fratelli Lunardi Tuscan Cookies line, a collection created to play with the shape of the cookie and fill it with Tuscany.

Because a cookie can be international in shape, yet deeply local in soul.

It can be round, colourful, contemporary. And at the same time, it can speak of ancient recipes, carefully selected ingredients, dialect words and fragrances that come from far away.

In Ramerini, this double soul can be felt straight away.

They are new biscuits, but they do not come out of nowhere. Behind them there is a memory of bread, of the oven, of Easter, of raisins, of ramerino broken between the fingers.

They are small, but they are not light on history.

When should you taste them?

Whenever you feel like a biscuit that does not say the usual thing.

At breakfast, with coffee, if you like fragrant flavours.
In the afternoon, with black tea or a simple herbal infusion.
After dinner, when you are looking for something sweet, but not too sweet.
Or in a mixed biscuit basket, just to see the face of whoever tastes one and says: “Wait, is there rosemary in this?”

Yes, there is.
And it works beautifully.

A story to nibble slowly

Ramerini are born from an ancient tradition, but they are not covered in nostalgia.

They are not an exercise in memory. They are a living, curious, slightly unusual biscuit, with that very Tuscan way of being simple and special at the same time.

They take Pan di Ramerino and carry it somewhere else.

From bread to cookie.
From the Easter table to an everyday break.
From the oven of the past to the online shop.

And on this journey, they bring with them raisins, rosemary and that fragrance that does not need to shout in order to be recognised.

This is the second of our #TUSCANSTORIES.

A small, round, fragrant story.

To bite into slowly.

Or not.

Discover Ramerini – Fratelli Lunardi Tuscan Cookies in our online shop and let yourself be surprised by a biscuit that smells of raisins, rosemary and Tuscany.

Look how good they are, smell the ramerino.