Soft rosetta bread rolls

A celebration of simplicity, memory and Italian panificio

Bread has always been one of the foundations of everyday life in Italy. Not the elaborate kind, but the everyday shapes you find in every panificio – those neighbourhood bakeries where bread is made through the night and sold still warm in the morning. A panificio isn’t quite a “bakery” as many imagine it elsewhere. It’s not a café, not a pastry shop, not a place for lingering. It’s a daily stop, as a meal would not be complete without bread on the table. And everyone has their favourite shape.

Among the baskets and trays, rosette are one of the most beloved. In Venice and across the Veneto, they’re the rolls you use to make panini filled with mortadella, prosciutto or salame, the kind of simple lunches that taste like childhood and springtime parties.

Across the north, there are many versions: the famous rosetta soffiata of Lombardy, hollow and crisp; the softer, milk‑rich ones we grew up with; and the rosette bianche that Fabio remembers from a panificio near his childhood home, baked a little less so they stayed pale and impossibly soft. He and his siblings would eat them plain, still warm, standing outside the shop, crumbs everywhere.

Bread was always there. In families like ours, it was the most accessible, filling, comforting thing. There’s an Italian expression – Hai fame? Mangia pane. Are you hungry? Eat some bread. And yet, whenever we were allowed to choose the shape, it felt like a small celebration.

Bread also had another life at home, especially in the Veneto, where nothing was wasted. Old stale bread became panada (or panadea in dialect), a humble, soothing soup made by simmering bread with milk and broth until it melted into something thick and comforting. Agnese’s mum made it often. An egg (from the hens in the garden) would be cracked into the bowl before the hot soup was poured over it, the heat gently cooking it. It didn’t look like much, another brutta ma buona, but it tasted like warmth and care. It was the cheapest way to feed a family, and one of the most nourishing.

These memories – the panificio rolls, the soft rosette we loved as children, the panada that warmed winter evenings – all come from the same place: the quiet importance of bread. Its simplicity, its generosity, its ability to hold a family together around the table.

This recipe is our way of honouring that. A small tribute to the bread that shaped our childhoods, to the hands that made it for us, and to the everyday rituals that stay with you long after you’ve grown up.

Notes from our test kitchen

Mashed boiled potato in the dough acts as a natural tenderiser, giving the rolls their pillowy crumb, longer freshness, and gentle moisture without making the dough heavy. It also feels like a small homage to the Veneto, a region with a long, affectionate history with potatoes and the comforting dishes they enrich.