Hot on the heels of Michaelmas comes the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi on 4th October.

Apparently, before his conversion Francis loved a bit of frivolity and his nickname amongst his friends was Dominus because he was the King of Partying! After his conversion however, he devoted his life to one of simplicity and frugality – but his one small indulgence seems to have been the almond biscuits baked by his friend and follower, Jacoba de Settestoli. Francis used to call her Brother Jacoba because he considered her to be like one of the Friars, and he would stay with her – and eat these biscuits – whenever he visited Rome. 

It is said that he loved them so much that, as he lay on his deathbed, he sent a message to Jacoba to come to Assisi and bring some to him, but before word reached her, she was already at the gates with a batch for him. Although women were not allowed to enter inside the Friary, Francis insisted that an exception was made for Jacoba, and she was by his side when he died.

The original recipe has disappeared into the mists of time, but almond biscuits are still frequently made to mark St Francis Day, and I decided to follow this one that I found from a modern Francisan Monastery.

The Same Cookies That Saint Francis Of Assisi Ate

I am suffering with quite severe brain fog at the moment, so converting American cup measurements into grams and then grams into ounces (I have a set of old fashioned scales with ounce/pound weights), and finally halving the ounces because forty biscuits was going to be far too many, proved to be a little challenging. Once I got past that however, the recipe was quick and easy to follow, and although mine spread out far more during baking than the ones in the video, the end result was delicious – crunchy but with a bit of chewiness in the centre.

St Francis is my daughter’s favourite Saint, and, as I am trying to mark as many special days as possible this year in order to create lots of small moments of magic, she challenged me to bake some almond biscuits and to photograph them alongside his picture. A, this blog post is for you x