Italian-style sandwich cookies (Baci di Dama-inspired)
🍪🤔 Did you know homemade cookies are an easy zero waste way to bake with whatever leftovers you have in your pantry like a mixture of nuts, chocolate, or jam? Follow Grandma Sita’s zero-waste hacks, save yourself an extra trip to the shops, and turn leftovers into edible and nutritious plant-based treats that will keep us and the planet healthy. So let’s bake delicious Italian-style sandwich cookies made from leftover mixed nuts and chocolate. Win-win!
🌱 Simone joined A Grandchild in My Kitchen, Grandma Sita’s cooking challenge, and they baked Simone’s family recipe of sandwich cookies, a classic childhood cooking memory, fun to make, and like most traditional cookies the ingredients are simple but the outcome is wonderful.
😋 This plant-based recipe is inspired by “Baci di Dama” (lady’s kisses) considered a standard of Italian confectionery, these popular cookies are originally from the Piedmont region in Italy. Their texture is crunchy and melt-in-your-mouth tender, making it hard to stop at just one!
INGREDIENTS
150g all-purpose flour
150g unrefined sugar (the fine kind)
150g unsalted vegan butter (cold)
150g leftover nuts mixed (almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts)
100g leftover chocolate
METHOD
1. Toast in the oven at 180° C, raw nuts mixed till lightly golden for about 10 minutes.
2. Grind them with half-unrefined sugar at full speed to get fine flour.
3. Cut the cold butter into small cubes and add to the bowl with all-purpose flour and remaining sugar.
4. Knead the dough until smooth. Form a loaf, wrap it, and place it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
5. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and form small round balls (1 cm in diameter). In the meantime, preheat the oven to 170° C for 15 minutes.
6. Place the balls lined 2 cm apart on a baking tray. Bake the cookies till golden not brown.
7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a double boiler.
8. Scoop out with a teaspoon, a small amount of chocolate firm enough to glue the cookies.
9. Lay it on the flat side of a cookie and stack another cookie on top.
10. Place the sandwich cookie carefully and let the chocolate solidify.
11. Keep doing this until all the cookies are finished and enjoy them!
👵🤎 Grandma Sita’s tips:
*Although “Baci di Dama” cookies are traditionally made with hazelnuts, currently many modern flavor variations, including almonds, pistachios, and cocoa. You can use any nuts or mixture of nuts according to availability, so have fun experimenting at home.
*Remember unsalted, unsweetened nuts are a healthy snack. Eating a moderate amount of nuts each day is extremely beneficial, literally as much nuts as fit in the palm of your hand.
*Adding a piece of fresh white bread to the storage container will keep cookies from becoming hard or stale keeping the cookies from drying out.
🌰🍫 “Baci di dama” is a sandwich cookie, consisting of two hazelnut cookies joined together by chocolate. It was created in the 19th century to utilize hazelnuts, local produce from Piedmont. “Baci di dama” have been classified as a traditional, protected Piedmontese product (PAT, i.e. prodotto agroalimentare tradizionale).
📗 According to a legend, “Baci di dama” was born from the fantasy of a cook of the Savoy family in the autumn of 1852, after Vittorio Emanuele II asked him to develop a new sweet.
🌎 Shopping, storing, and cooking food are fundamental in our daily lives. All of us can take action to manage our food better to avoid wasting and transition our diets to be more planet-friendly before, during, and after any holiday season. Every bit counts.