Baci di Dama (Italian Hazelnut Cookies)
By Steve DunnPublished on September 4, 2019
Time
1¼ hours, plus 1 hour cooling
Yield
Makes 32 sandwich cookies
Ingredients
Before You Begin
Toast the hazelnuts on a rimmed baking sheet in a 325-degree oven until fragrant, 13 to 15 minutes, shaking the sheet halfway through toasting. To skin them, gather the warm hazelnuts in a dish towel and rub to remove some of the skins. A square-cornered metal baking pan works best for shaping the dough. If using a baking dish with rounded corners, be sure to square the corners of the dough before portioning. We prefer Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Premium Baking Bar for this recipe.
Instructions
- Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Line bottom of 8-inch square baking pan with parchment. Process hazelnuts, flour, sugar, and salt in food processor until hazelnuts are very finely ground, 20 to 25 seconds. Add butter and pulse until dough just comes together, 20 to 25 pulses.
- Transfer dough to counter, knead briefly to form smooth ball, place in prepared pan, and press into even layer that covers bottom of pan. Freeze for 10 minutes. Run knife or bench scraper between dough and edge of pan to loosen. Turn out dough onto counter and discard parchment. Cut dough into 64 squares (8 rows by 8 rows). Roll dough squares into balls and evenly space 32 dough balls on each prepared sheet. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until cookies look dry and are fragrant (cookies will settle but not spread), about 20 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking. Transfer sheet to wire rack and let cookies cool completely, about 30 minutes.
- Microwave chocolate in small bowl at 50 percent power, stirring every 20 seconds, until melted, 1 to 2 minutes. Let chocolate cool at room temperature until it is slightly thickened and registers 80 degrees, about 10 minutes. Invert half of cookies on each sheet. Using ¼-teaspoon measure, spoon chocolate onto flat surfaces of all inverted cookies. Top with remaining cookies, pressing lightly to adhere. Let chocolate set for at least 15 minutes before serving. (Cookies can be stored in airtight container at room temperature for up to 10 days.)
Time
1¼ hours, plus 1 hour coolingYield
Makes 32 sandwich cookiesIngredients
Test Kitchen Techniques
Ingredients
Test Kitchen Techniques
Ingredients
Test Kitchen Techniques
Why This Recipe Works
These tiny Italian hazelnut-chocolate sandwich cookies are typically made from a very rich, fragile dough that easily softens and crumbles when you roll it. Reducing the amount of butter and nuts in the dough made it firmer but still plenty rich and tender. Leaving bits of skin on the nuts also helped firm up the dough and added complex flavor and attractive color. Precisely portioning the dough so that each cookie bakes up identically usually requires scooping and weighing dozens of individual pieces, but we found that it was much faster and easier to press the dough into a parchment paper–lined square baking pan, briefly freeze it to firm it up, and cut a “portion grid” into the resulting dough block. Melting dark chocolate in the microwave and letting it cool and thicken slightly before spooning it onto the inverted cookies ensured that it didn't drip off the sides. Gently pressing the second cookie on top spread the filling just to the edges. Letting the cookies rest for 15 minutes before serving allowed the chocolate to set.
Want more? Read the whole storyBefore You Begin
Toast the hazelnuts on a rimmed baking sheet in a 325-degree oven until fragrant, 13 to 15 minutes, shaking the sheet halfway through toasting. To skin them, gather the warm hazelnuts in a dish towel and rub to remove some of the skins. A square-cornered metal baking pan works best for shaping the dough. If using a baking dish with rounded corners, be sure to square the corners of the dough before portioning. We prefer Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Premium Baking Bar for this recipe.
Instructions
- Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Line bottom of 8-inch square baking pan with parchment. Process hazelnuts, flour, sugar, and salt in food processor until hazelnuts are very finely ground, 20 to 25 seconds. Add butter and pulse until dough just comes together, 20 to 25 pulses.
- Transfer dough to counter, knead briefly to form smooth ball, place in prepared pan, and press into even layer that covers bottom of pan. Freeze for 10 minutes. Run knife or bench scraper between dough and edge of pan to loosen. Turn out dough onto counter and discard parchment. Cut dough into 64 squares (8 rows by 8 rows). Roll dough squares into balls and evenly space 32 dough balls on each prepared sheet. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until cookies look dry and are fragrant (cookies will settle but not spread), about 20 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking. Transfer sheet to wire rack and let cookies cool completely, about 30 minutes.
- Microwave chocolate in small bowl at 50 percent power, stirring every 20 seconds, until melted, 1 to 2 minutes. Let chocolate cool at room temperature until it is slightly thickened and registers 80 degrees, about 10 minutes. Invert half of cookies on each sheet. Using ¼-teaspoon measure, spoon chocolate onto flat surfaces of all inverted cookies. Top with remaining cookies, pressing lightly to adhere. Let chocolate set for at least 15 minutes before serving. (Cookies can be stored in airtight container at room temperature for up to 10 days.)
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