These 'Lady's Kisses' are some of the most delicious Italian biscuits ever. Made with hazelnuts and dark chocolate, these cookies are so pretty, you could easily gift them to friends and family.
Baci di Dama (or, in English, Lady's Kisses) originally come from Piedimont, the region that, because of its abundance of hazelnuts, gave us international hits such as Nutella and Ferrero Rocher. And just like these two famous sweet treats, Baci di Dama also feature hazelnuts and chocolate (aka, a flavour combination made in heaven). No one quite knows for sure where the name Lady's Kisses came from. Some people say it's because the two biscuits are made to 'kiss' thanks to the chocolate filling. Others say that each biscuit as a whole looks like a pair of lips blowing a kiss. Whatever the story behind the name is, they are sooo delicious and they are some of my favourite biscuits ever.
At home, we often buy Baci di Dama from a local patisserie. Yet, a while ago, my mum got a recipe from one of her colleagues, who had brought some delicious homemade Baci di Dama to work. Since then, we have made them quite a few times, tweaking the recipe to best suit our tastes, and we have eneded up with Baci di Dama that are so good, you'd believe you bought them from a shop. They are buttery, sweet, and have a soft, crumbly texture that is to die for! So, since they are THAT good, I believe it's time I share this traditional Italian recipe with you all.
What You'll Need to Make the Best Baci di Dama Out There:
Hazelnuts: The star of the show. You'll need whole, peeled hazelnuts for this.
Almonds: Not all Baci di Dama recipes use almonds and you could just use more hazelnuts. Yet, the almonds make these Baci di Dama super delicate and delicious.
Dark Chocolate: Go for good-quality dark chocolate but don't go too bitter - anything above 70% dark chocolate doesn't melt great because of the low amount of cocoa butter present in it.
Butter: Normally, Italian cakes and biscuits have very little butter compared to other countries' sweet treats. Here, I used would what we would define a 'whopping' 200 grams. But each and evry gram is so so worth it.
Eggs, Flour and Sugar: To complete the magic.
A Few Important Things to Consider:
This recipes makes A LOT of biscuits. Depending on the size (see the bullet point below), you could end with about 35 biscuits. So you will likely have to bake these in batches. If not, simply halve every ingredient, like I did when I shot the recipe.
Don't be fooled by the size of the biscuits PRE-BAKING: these cookies do spread a hell of a lot. If you are a fan of bigger biscuits (and I mean, these are so delicious that I am totally with you on this), a 2/2.5-cm ball will give you a 5-cm (or even a little bigger) biscuit. So if you do that, do leave plenty of space between biscuits on your tray, or they will merge together. Personally, I normally go traditional and shape little 1(ish)-cm balls.
When they first come out of the oven, your biscuits will look a bit under-baked. They aren't, trust me. And please, I cannot emphasise this more, DO NOT TOUCH THEM until they have absolutely cooled down: the biscuits' texture is so soft, if you touch them when they are warm they will crumble like sand.
Ingredients:
Makes 30-35 Baci di Dama
100 gr whole, peeled hazelnuts
100 gr whole, peeled almonds
200 gr plain flour
180 gr caster sugar
200 gr softened unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
75 gr good-quality dark chocolate
2 tbsp milk (optional)
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
Place your hazelnuts and almonds in a non-stick pan and toast them on a high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring continuosly.
Let the nuts cool and then transfer them to a food processor and blitz them finely.
Transfer the nuts into a bowl and mix in the flour. Then add the sugar, eggs and butter until all the ingredients are combined and the consistency is thick enough that you can shape small balls of dough.
Shape some very small balls with the dough (mine are normally 1 cm thick or so) and press them lightly on a baking tray lined with baking paper. You can make bigger balls too, 2/2.5 cm thick, to have bigger biscuits but, as a word of warning: these biscuits spread A LOT. So if you do that, leave plenty of space between them, so that they don't merge together whilst baking.
You'll probably need to bake the biscuits in batches, so I suggest you keep the dough refirgerated in-between bakes.
According to the size of your balls, you want to bake them for about 15-18 minutes. They will look slightly under-baked, but they aren't. When they come out of the oven leave them to cool and don't touch them until they have hardened: they are super fragile and touching them when hot will turn their consistency to sand.
Once all your biscuit halves are baked, melt the chocolate in a double boiler, adding a couple tablespoon of milk if needed. Then spoon a little bit of the chocolate on the flat side of one biscuits and sandwich the other biscuit half on top. Leave the chocolate to harden.
These biscuits can be kept on the counter for up to a week. However, they will never last that long.
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