The seal
The Tested 3× seal appears only on recipes baked three times in a home oven — ours — with the bake notes published. A recipe without the seal is labeled la ricetta documentata: reconstructed from the published record, stated in baker’s percentages, and honest about not having been proven here yet. We would rather show you the difference than blur it.
The tests
Products for taste tests are bought at retail under an ordinary customer’s name. Tests are published whether or not a sponsor’s product wins. No sponsor sees a piece before it runs. No affiliate link changes the order of a ranking. If a future page carries a sponsored unit, it will be marked in brass and labeled — the one color on this site money is allowed to wear.
The sources
Claims trace to primary documents where they exist: laws, labels, regional registers, dated newspapers. Where a claim rests on tradition rather than paper, we say so in the sentence itself. Where our own research is unfinished — an archive we have not yet read with our own eyes — the page says that too, and the claim waits.
The ratings
Rating rows on this site are biscotti, not stars — and they appear only when something real stands behind them: our published test scores, or genuine reader ratings. You will find no number on this site that exists to decorate it.
Corrections
We correct fast and in the open. A correction note stays on the page it corrects. If you catch an error — in a recipe, in the atlas, in the register — telling us is a favour, and we treat it as one.