Decameron: Cisti’s Homespun Buns Recipe [VI/2]

Cisti’s Homespun Buns Recipe

I know people love-- and I mean, love-- our buns, but we’ve never shared the recipe for them here before. Part of that was unintentional-- it’s not like we’ve got a ton of free time being Florence’s Favorite Bakery for 15 years and counting-- but part of it was because I wanted to do it right. This recipe has an epic story behind it, and it didn’t feel right sharing it without some set-up. So here, without further ado, is the story of where our Homespun Buns come from.

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You might know that Cisti’s has never expanded to a bigger/nicer location than the one we started in. Internally, we call this Keeping It Humble. It’s part of the Cisti’s experience: We bake great bread and we stay simple. This has been our guiding principle from the very beginning. 

Of course, this doesn't mean we can’t afford ourselves some nice wine here and there. People don’t expect it, but we’ve got quite the selection in our cellars. Our wine is so good that we knew it could get the attention of people like celebrity chef, Messer Geri. Sure enough, when we invited him over to taste some at a private Cisti’s event, he was blown away and kept coming back our way for more. 

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One day, Geri writes and asks us to donate wine for a dinner he’s catering. We’re like sure, of course, send somebody over to get it. Pretty soon an assistant of his shows up to pick up the wine. He’s holding the biggest carafe you can imagine. Just enormous. “Pour it in this,” he says. 

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Now, I know Geri from his TV show and I know he’s not the kind of guy to get greedy with good wine like this, so I send the assistant back, wineless. 

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Forty minutes later, he comes back. Same gigantic carafe. I say no way. He leaves.

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Forty minutes later, same thing! He shows up with a huge decanter. I send him off.

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Forty minutes later, you guessed it: he’s back again, asking for way too much wine. I still say no. 

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About an hour after that, who should show up, but Messer Geri himself. He apologizes profusely, explains that the assistant was trying to skim some wine off the top for himself. I say, no worries; I had an idea of what was up. Then I surprise both him and the bashful assistant by giving Messer Geri my entire wine collection. After all, this is the Cisti’s way: Keep It Generous. You get what you put out into the world. It was pure karma when Messer Geri got us back by featuring us in an episode of Season 3 (link at bottom of post). 

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Anyway, later that night I made some biscuits. Here’s the recipe: 

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tbsp sugar

• 1/3 tsp salt

• 3 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 cup cold butter

• 1 egg

• 1 cup whole milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix ingredients and cook.

Decameron is a newsletter recounting the 14th Century set of quarantine tales for 2020. Read the original story.

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