Baci di Dama Cookies (Hazelnut Cookies) Recipe

When I was doing groceries last year, I grabbed a bag of Glutinous Rice Flour to make Tang Yuan. I was just about to leave with it when Miss XS told me that Tang Yuan uses Rice Flour instead, and after a long debate, we wounded up with rice flour. Glutinous Rice Flour is the right flour, as it turned out, and I, and several other unfortunate souls, learnt that these two flours are not interchangeable when I made a failed batch of tang yuan.   

So ever since that fiasco, I had been wondering what on earth am I going to do with the bag of rice flour that have been sitting in my kitchen and taking up valuable real estate, when I came across this Baci di Dama (hazelnut cookies) recipe.

It's been a while since I touched this tricky recipe, and I hit a couple of snags along the way. But persistence (and stubborness!) goes a long way, and when this recipe finally goes right, it pays off in spades. The hazelnut cookies can be kept for a week at room temperature in an airtight container, but with five of us sitting around the tray, they didn't even last the night. 

Most of these pictures here are taken by R.

Baci di Dama

Makes about 45 cookies

Taken from David Lebovitz
Original recipe by Terresa Murphy of La Cucina di Terresa

INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 cups (140g) hazelnuts, toasted and skinned
1 cup (140g) rice flour (or all-purpose flour)
3 1/2 ounces (100g) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
pinch of salt
2 ounces (55g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

STEPS
                       -Prepping nuts to grind into meal- 
1) Toast the hazelnuts in a 325ºF (160ºC) until deep golden brown color and the skins are peeling away, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven.

2) As soon as the hazelnuts are cool enough to handle, rub the hazelnuts with your hands, until the skins come off. Let the nuts cool completely.

If using almonds, they can be skinned by soaking them in boiling water for about a minute. Fish the almonds out and as soon as they’re cool enough to handle, pinch each almond on one side and the nut will just slide right off the skins. (This did not work with hazelnuts, as I learnt the hard way.)

(I tried both using raw hazelnuts and hazelnut meal, and using prepared hazelnut meal really saved a lot of aggravation. In fact, I used shelled hazelnuts the first time I did this recipe, which I had to individually crack before roasting and de-skinning them. Don't be like me.)

3) Put the nuts in the bowl of a food processor along with a tablespoon of rice flour and pulse until they are the consistency of coarse polenta. (The tablespoon of rice flour helps absorb the hazelnut oil released during pulsing)

4. Transfer the ground nuts to a bowl and add the rest of the rice flour (if using all-purpose flour, sift it in). Add the butter, sugar, and salt to the dry ingredients. Use your hands to mix all the ingredients together until the butter is dispersed and completely incorporated. The dough should be very smooth and hold together. If not, knead it until it does. Adding a bit of melted butter or a few tablespoons of water works just as well. Use the minimum necessary.

5. Divide the dough into three equal pieces and roll each piece until it’s 3/4-inch (2cm) round. Try to get them as smooth as possible, with no cracks. If the dough is too long to work with as you roll them out, you can cut the dough at the midway point and work with it in batches. Chill the dough logs until firm on a small baking sheet or dinner plate lined with plastic wrap or parchment paper. Terresa recommends refrigerating them for 2-3 hours; or alternatively, to put them in the freezer for 15 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 325ºF (160ºC) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

7. Working with one length of dough at a time, keeping the others in the refrigerator or freezer, cut off equal-sized pieces using a knife or pastry cutter. The ideal is 5 grams each, if working with a scale. The fastest way to do it is to cut one to the right weight, then hold that one alongside the logs and use it as a template to cut the others. Once you’ve cut a length of dough, shape each slice into a flat hemisphere. Place them on the baking sheet slightly spaced apart. 
(These cookies don't spread, so pack 'em as close to each other as you want to.)

8. Continue cutting the dough and rolling it into little balls. Bake the cookies for 10 to 14 minutes, rotating the baking sheets in the oven midway during cooking, until the tops are lightly golden brown. (The bottom turns brown before the top; keep a lookout to make sure the bottom doesn't get burnt.) Let the cookies cool completely. 

9. In a clean, dry bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, melt the chocolate until smooth. Put a chocolate chip-sized dollop of chocolate on the bottom of one cookie (either via a spoon, or a little parchment paper cone) and take another cookie, and sandwich the two halves together. Personally, I prefer just a dab of chocolate with each cookie, rather than making a cookie sandwich. For non-purists, feel free to do the same. 

Once filled, set the Baci di Dama sideways on a wire cooling rack until the chocolate is firm.

Storage: The cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week.

Protip! Don't waste the remaining chocolate. I usually add milk to any remaining melted chocolate and make hot chocolate.