Baci Di Dama (Italian Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies) Recipe: Baci di dama, which literally means “lady’s kisses,” are small hazelnut cookies that are squished together with chocolate to make a “kiss.” Since there are no eggs in the recipe, the cookies are crisp and crumbly like shortbread, and they taste rich and nutty. Once they’re filled with chocolate, they taste so good and make you feel so good. My favorite way to make these lovely little cookie sandwiches is with this baci di dama recipe.
Baci Di Dama (Italian Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies) Recipe
The food processor makes it easy to quickly mix the dough, which means fewer dishes, less time in the fridge, and cookies that are extra soft. They are small, like French Pignoli, Egyptian Ghorayebah, or Greek Melomakarona cookies, which makes them great as a coffee snack or a sweet treat after dinner.
About four dozen cookies are made by this recipe, so there’s plenty to share in a cookie tray or give as holiday gifts. Step one is to toast the hazelnuts, which makes them taste more buttery and rich. Finely ground nuts are mixed with flour, vanilla, butter, and a little lemon zest to make a rich cookie that melts in your mouth. The texture is crumbly and airy, and you can’t stop eating it.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (140g) hazelnuts
- ¾ cup (85g) powdered sugar, divided
- 1 cup (120g) all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup (113g) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or dark rum
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest (about ½ lemon)
- 4 ounces (113g) semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate (60 to 70% cacao), chopped
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How to make Baci Di Dama
- Warm up your oven. Set racks in the oven’s bottom and upper thirds, and then heat it up to 350°F. Put parchment paper on two baking sheets. Warm up the hazelnuts. Place the hazelnuts on one of the baking sheets that has been prepared. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the nuts are browned and the kitchen smells like nuts (don’t turn off the oven; we’ll bake the cookies at the same temperature).
- Take the skins off of the hazelnuts. Move the hazelnuts to a clean, damp tea towel while they are still warm but cool enough to handle. For one to two minutes, rub them together hard to get off as much of the skin as you can. Put them in the towel. Make the hazelnuts fine. Put the hazelnuts in a food processor and remove the skins.
- Get the ¾ cup of powdered sugar and then take 2 tablespoons of it to put on the hazelnuts. For one to two minutes, grind the hazelnuts and two tablespoons of sugar until they are very small. Mix the dry stuff together. Put in the rest of the salt, flour, and sugar. For about one minute, process until the dry ingredients are spread out evenly. You might need to stop and scrape the bottom corner of the processor bowl with a rubber spatula.
- Make the bread. To the dry ingredients, add the butter cubes, vanilla extract, and lemon zest. Pulse a few times to spread the butter out and break it up. Then, process for about 30 seconds, or until the dough starts to stick together. Split up the dough. Put the dough on a clean surface to work with. Knead the dough slowly a few times if there are still dry flour bits in it.
- Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces, each about 4 ounces (115g). Shape the dough. Carefully shape each piece into a log that is 12 inches long and 1 inch wide. Press the log back together slowly if it starts to break apart. If the dough does stick to the counter, sprinkle it with a little flour.
Make the cookies into shapes. Cut each log into 24 ½-inch pieces with a bench scraper or a sharp knife. - Use your hands to roll each piece into a ball. Put them on the baking sheets 1 inch apart. Use the pan and parchment paper that you used to roast the hazelnuts again. There should be room for 48 cookies in each pan.
- Bake: Put the pans on the top or bottom oven rack and turn them around so the front is facing the front. Bake for 8 minutes. For another six minutes or so, bake the cookies until the edges are just beginning to turn golden and the tops are dry. Cool. It should take about 30 minutes for the cookies to cool down to room temperature in the pan.
- Warm up the chocolate. Put the chocolate chips in a bowl that can go in the microwave. Each time you put the chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds, stir it with a rubber spatula until it melts and is smooth. Meet up. Put about ½ teaspoon of chocolate on the bottom of a cookie, and then put another cookie on top of it gently.
- This will make a sandwich. The chocolate should cover the whole cookie. As you do this with the rest of the cookies, match the halves of the cookies by size and shape. Take a break and serve. For at least 15 minutes, let the chocolate set until it is firm before you serve it. The cookies can be kept at room temperature for up to a week in a container that doesn’t let air in.
Nutrition
- Calories: 63.4 kcal
- Carbohydrates: 5.5 g
- Protein: 0.8 g
- Fat: 4.4 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.9 g
- Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.3 g
- Monounsaturated Fat: 1.9 g
- Trans Fat: 0.1 g
- Cholesterol: 5.2 mg
- Sodium: 12.7 mg
- Potassium: 34 mg
- Fiber: 0.5 g
- Sugar: 2.8 g
- Vitamin A: 60.8 IU
- Vitamin C: 0.2 mg
- Calcium: 5.4 mg
- Iron: 0.4 mg
